[W.M. Thackeray, attrib.] | Illustrated manuscript, "A Wonderfulle ... History of a certain Flock of Sheep", 1848

[William Makepeace Thackeray (attrib.)]

Illustrated manuscript entitled “A Wonderfulle, Veritable and Trulye Delectable Hystorye; of a certain flock of sheep that went astray, during [th]e Shepherde his absence. Together w[it]h divers wondrous matters wh[ich] are contained in thys little Boke”, a comic narrative concerning an Irish parson whose congregation succumbs to worldly temptation when he is abroad on an Alpine holiday, the text in a single print hand and illustrated with ten watercolours laid down on blue paper, 6 pages, 8vo (185 x 133mm), text and illustrations on rectos only, with original handwritten title page (“Imprinted for John Snobbe, Gent. At the Inkpotte and Asse in Fleet Street. MDCCCXLVIII [i.e. 1848]”), bound in modern red cloth, red Morocco backed slipcase, spotting, stain to one watercolour

AN UNPUBLISHED ILLUSTRATED STORY THAT CAN BE ATTRIBUTED WITH SOME CONFIDENCE TO WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

This charming story of a humourless parson is full of detail that is richly evocative of mid-Victorian life. The parson packs his carpet bag and gives a “brief and improving discourse of two hours & fifty nine minutes” – the accompanying illustration shows the women in the congregation disconsolate and the men sleeping – before taking a steamer, depicted as a kettle, to the Continent for a walking holiday in the Alps. In the town of “Schmdttvonichbrandtt” he reads disturbing news from Ireland: ironically, what worries him is not the nationalist drama of the Young Ireland Rebellion of July 1848, but “Fashionable Intelligence” of parties and engagements. He hurries back on an absurd train pulled by four locomotives and a steamer assisted by a rowing boat to bring his flock back to the path of righteousness. He finds some members of his congregation at a recital by Jenny Lind (the “Swedish Nightingale” performed in Dublin in October 1848), whilst others flirt in a richly appointed drawing room. The final illustration is of a magic lantern slide showing a disarmingly cheerful devil, with a couple taking advantage of the darkness to kiss under the mistletoe. The gentleman, who sports a magnificent set of mutton-chop whiskers, leans forward to kiss the girl whilst simultaneously reaching out behind her to grasp at a rich, and possibly symbolic, tart. 

The story is said to have been composed by Thackeray to entertain the grandchildren of Sir Charles and Lady Sarah Elton of Clevedon Court, Somerset. Thackeray was a close friend of the Elton family and made several visits to Clevedon Court (including in 1848), using it as the basis for Castlewood Hall in Esmond. Thackeray was an accomplished illustrator (he had attempted to make a career as an artist in the 1830s) and these confidently drawn watercolours bear comparison with Thackeray’s illustrations for Vanity Fair (the parson, for example, resembles Thackeray’s depiction of Mr Osborne in his novel). References to Thackeray’s work and milieu are also threaded through the manuscript. The putative printer “John Snobbe” seems to refer to Thackeray’s Book of Snobs, published in 1848; the parson is inspired to travel by ‘The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman’, a favourite of Thackeray; the parson’s source of news in Europe is Galignani, to which Thackeray had been a contributing writer; and Thackeray himself had attended a Jenny Lind concert in June 1848.

Thackeray was also very much at home with the Irish setting of the story: he had published his own travelogue, The Irish Sketch Book of 1842, and had subsequently written extensively on Ireland for Punch. The Irish setting perhaps suggests that the manuscript was written to console the children of Sir Charles’s fourth daughter Laura, who had died in March 1848, and who had married Charles Samuel Grey, Paymaster of the Civil Services in Ireland. In any case, the story is set in the affluent world of the urban Protestant middle class, far removed from the desperate poverty of famine-stricken rural Ireland of the 1840s.

The handwriting is not Thackeray’s rapid cursive, nor is it his more careful upright handwriting. However, these differences may be because the handwriting is carefully printed with almost every letter formed separately, perhaps as its intended readership were young children. They are similar to the French handwritten captions that accompanied Thackeray’s early comic illustrated manuscript 'The Heroic Adventures of M. Boudin'.

PROVENANCE

The Elton family, baronets, of Clevedon Court, Somerset; acquired c.1966 by John Ruston, Commins Bookshop, Bournemouth