Ritchie, Anne Thackeray, 1837-1919

English novelist; daughter of W. M. Thackeray.

From the description of Prayer : autograph manuscript : [n.p.], 1865 June 9. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270858284

Ann Isabella Ritchie was the elder daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1861), a well-known Victorian novelist. Anne was a prolific novelist, essayist and writer of memoirs. By 1875, The Works of Miss Thackeray had been published in eight volumes (Smith, Elder & Company), extended to 15 volumes by 1866. Most of her critical essays appeared in The Cornhill Magazine . Her first contribution appeared in the magazine's first year, 1860, and most of her fiction appeared serially in the magazine including, The Village on the Cliff , Old Kensington , Miss Angel and Mrs. Dymond . She died in 1919.

From the guide to the Ritchie, Anne Isabella, c1862-1918, (Senate House Library, University of London)

English author and daughter of Thackeray.

From the description of Autograph letter signed : Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, to Mr. Martin, [no year] Apr. 17. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270655200

From the description of Autograph letters signed (10) : Wimbledon [etc.], to J. Pearson and C.E. Shepheard of J. Pearson & Co., booksellers, 1891 Oct. 27-1897 July 26. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270655206

From the description of Autograph letter signed : London, to Catherine Dickens, [after 1867] Mar. 5. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270655190

From the description of Autograph letters signed (2) with initials : Wimbledon, to Mrs. John W. Field, [ca. 1886 Dec. 26 and 30]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270655193

From the description of Autograph notes signed, 1896. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270655183

From the description of Autograph letters and postal cards signed (25) : Wimbledon [etc.], to W.A. Knight, 1891 June 10-1904 Mar. 8, but mainly undated. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270655197

From the description of Autograph letters signed (2) : Freshwater Bay and Wykehurst, Bolney, to Edith Story (Marchesa Peruzzi de' Medici), [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270655210

English novelist; daughter of W.M. Thackeray.

From the description of Autograph letters signed (15) : London, to her grandmother [Anne Smythe], 1845 Nov. 26-1846 Dec. 26. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852151

From the description of Autograph letters (4) : St. Andrews, and Cupar, Fife, Scotland, to "My Dear Sal", [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852206

From the description of Autograph letter signed : London, to Mr. and Mrs. Cole, [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852187

From the description of Autograph letter signed : [n.p.], to "Aunt Jane", [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852215

From the description of Autograph letter signed : Havre, to Amy Crowe, "Friday" [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852180

From the description of Autograph letter : [n.p.], to Anny Thackeray from an unidentified recipient, [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852127

From the description of Portion of an autograph letter : London, to an unidentified recipient, [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270857811

From the description of Autograph letter signed : [n.p.], to "Mary Anne", [no year] Sept. 16. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852191

From the description of Autograph letters signed (5) : [n.p.], to Mrs. Cole, [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852210

From the description of Autograph letter signed : [n.p.], to Mr. A. Fanshawe, [1855]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852163

From the description of Autograph letter : [n.p.], to an unidentified relative, [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852165

From the description of Autograph letter signed : London, to Amy Crowe, [1862 Sept. 13]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852195

From the description of Autograph letter : Cupar, Fife, to her father, W.M. Thackeray, [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852202

From the description of Autograph letter signed : [n.p.], to Amy [Crowe], [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852199

From the description of Autograph letter : Paris, to Amy Crowe, 1856 Sept. 10. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852174

From the description of Autograph letter : [n.p.], to "You dear old Girl", [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852183

From the description of Portion of an autograph letter : [n.p.], to "Aunt Jane", [n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270857807

From the description of Autograph letter signed : Paris and [n.p.], to Amy [Crowe, 1856 Nov. 28] and [ca. 1856]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852178

From the description of Autograph letter : [n.p.], to "Granny" [Anne Smyth, 1855 Aug. 18]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270852170

English novelist and daughter of Thackeray.

From the description of Autograph letter signed : St. George's Square [London], to S.C. Cockerell, [1912 Jan. 20]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270655187

English novelist and biographer.

From the description of Letter : to Mr. Lowne, Nov. 22. (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC); University of Texas at Austin). WorldCat record id: 122472742

English author; daughter of W.M. Thackeray.

From the description of The Four Georges : autograph manuscript : [n.p., n.d.]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270858372

Gerin, Winifred. Anne Thackeray Ritchie: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Monsarrat, Ann. An Uneasy Victorian: Thackeray the Man, 1811–1863. London, Cassell, 1980. Biographical details were also obtained from the collection.

One of the most prolific and beloved novelists of the Victorian Era, William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Alipur, India, on July 18, 1811, the only child of Richmond Thackeray, a successful administrator for the East India Company, and his wife, Anne Becher. Thackeray’s father passed away four years later, and young William was sent to boarding school in London. Many of his early experiences in India and later in boarding school found their way into several of his popular works, including Vanity Fair and The Newcomes

After his premature departure from Cambridge University and a half-hearted attempt at law school in 1834, Thackeray moved to Paris to concentrate on his art. While studying there, he met and married Isabella Getkin Creach Shawe (1818–1893). The couple had three daughters, Anne Isabella, Harriet Marrian, and Jane who died at age eighteen months. Soon after her daughter’s death, Isabella Thackeray suffered a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered. Thackeray was then left with the responsibility of raising two young daughters and supporting his wife who would remain in various sanitoriums for the rest of her life.

When Thackeray learned that Robert Seymour was unable to finish the illustrations for Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers, he immediately volunteered his services. Dickens chose someone else, however, and this decision led Thackeray to turn to his writing for financial support.

Thackeray published many of his early magazine and newspaper pieces under the pseudonym Michael Angelo Titmarsh, or sometimes simply M.A.Titmarsh. He was a regular contributor for Punch from 1842 to 1854. His contributions included both written material as well as drawings and sketches.

Interestingly, the first book-length publication of Thackeray’s writing was produced in the United States. In 1838, two Philadelphia publishers, Carey and Hart, published a collection of Thackeray’s pieces from Fraser’s Magazine under the title of The Yellowplush Correspondence . Other volumes soon followed, including his masterpiece, Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, which began appearing serially in 1847; The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Respectable Family, which ran from 1853 to 1855, and The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century, whose twenty-four numbers ran from 1857 to 1859.

Hoping to earn enough money to support his two daughters and his wife in the event of his death, Thackeray made an extensive lecture tour of Europe and the east coast of the United States between 1851 and 1853. The tour proved successful on two accounts: it earned him both financial stability as well as an increased readership.

After an unsuccessful run for a seat in Parliament in 1857, Thackeray turned again to magazine writing and became the editor of the popular Cornhill Magazine . Among its contributors were Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Washington Irving, Matthew Arnold, Harriet Martineau, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, and Wilkie Collins. Despite the magazine’s popularity, he resigned as editor in the spring of 1862 to concentrate on his own writing.

Thackeray died in his sleep on Christmas Eve, 1863. He was fifty-two years old.

Though best known as the daughter of one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian Era, Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie was a successful writer in her own right. Born on June 9, 1837 to William Makepeace Thackeray and Isabella Getkin Creach Shawe (1816–1893), Ritchie was the first of three daughters. Following the death of the youngest daughter Jane, Anne’s mother lapsed into a state of mental illness from which she never recovered. With her mother in and out of various sanitoriums, Ritchie was left in the care of her father who gave her the kind of liberal education usually reserved for boys.

Ritchie is the author of eight novels, including The Story of Elizabeth (1863), The Village on the Cliff (1867), Old Kensington (1873), Miss Angel (1875), Miss Williamson’s Divagations (1881), and Mrs. Dymond (1885). She is perhaps best known, however, for her criticism and memorials of the leading literary figures of her day, including personal memorials of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Edward Ruskin. She is also the author of A Discourse of Modern Sibyls (1913) in which she wrote about her literary predecessors including George Eliot, Currer Bell, and Margaret Oliphant. Her essay, Charles Dickens as I remember Him, is one of her most popular and was eventually published in her 1913 collection, From the Porch .

During her lifetime, Ritchie had the privilege of befriending many of England’s most prolific and respected writers. She grew up among her father’s friends, including the Carlyles, the Brownings, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Barry Cornwall, and Edward FitzGerald. As an older woman, she witnessed the success of her niece by marriage, Virginia Woolf, and became something of a matriarchal figure for a new generation of writers, including Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, Henry James, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

From the guide to the Anne Thackeray Ritchie biographical introductions to, The Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, 1897–1899, (University of Delaware Library - Special Collections)

Daughter of William Thackeray.

English author, memoirist, and essayist.

From the description of Anne Thackeray Ritchie papers; 1870, undated. (Washington State University). WorldCat record id: 36413400