Anne Thackeray Ritchie's journals and letters provide a significant source of social and literary information for mid-Victorian to turn-of-the century historians and literary critics. As the editor and principal force behind Cornhill Magazine, Lady Ritchie knew all writers "worth knowing," and can provide intimate daily life insights into the closed world of British publishing of that era. Her writings are a particularly valuable source for feminist and art historians inasmuch as her drawing room wa

Please see my complete review of "A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight" under the heading "A Fox Under My Cloak."

While the 20th century audience may recognize William Makepeace Thackeray as one of the 19th century's most interesting authors, very few know of his daughter. Winifred Gerin is the only biographer so far to recognize Anne Thackeray Ritchie as an author in her own right. The 1981 biography offers an in-depth and up-close look at Thackeray's world, including many familiar faces such as Tennyson, Dickens, Carlyle, Ruskin, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Darwin, Virginia Woolf (Anne's niece), and even an eyewitness account of Chopin's last days in Paris. Anne Thackeray was the eyes and ears of Victorian London, and through Gerin's thorough research and plentiful use of letters and recorded conversations, the average reader comes that much closer to getting a true glimpse of the literary and art scene of Victorian Britain.