Thackeray: The Sentimental Cynic (Northwestern University Studies. Humanities Series, V. 25,)

Rating:
Summary: One of the few that matter
Review: I've read, oh, 3,000 books of literary criticism. Two illuminated their subject. This is one. (The other is "Shakespeare's Imagery" by Dorothy Van Ghent.) This is what great criticism should be, an enrichment of the subject for the reader--not an exercise in correctness, a line for the vita, self-absorbed fantasy, or one critic's opinions about another. Imagine: a book that remains in the mind after reading 3,000 similar. Holds the mirror up to the lamp.