Thackerayana : Notes and Anecdotes (Illustrated‪)‬

“A large portion of the public, and especially that smaller section of the community, the readers of books, will not easily forget the shock, as universal as it was unexpected, which was produced at Christmas, 1863, by the almost incredible intelligence of the death of William Makepeace Thackeray. The mournful news was repeated at many a Christmas table, that he, who had led the simple Colonel Newcome to his solemn and touching end, would write no more. The circumstance was so startling from the suddenness of the great loss which society at large had sustained, that it was some time before people could realise the dismal truth of the report.”