"The Newcomes: memoirs of a most respectable family, edited by Arthur Pendennis" by W.M. Thackeray and illustrated by Richard Doyle. Bradbury & Evans, London - 1855 first UK edition first issue - 18cmx15cm - condition: very good, rebound in half leather binding, some rubbing to edges, owner's stamp on ffep, engraved frontispiece and vignette titlep, regular title page and 22 additional plates with ill. by Richard Doyle, some page foxing. The Newcomes was published serially over about two years, as Thackeray himself says in one of the novel's final chapters. The novel shows its serial origin: it is very long (an undated but clearly very old edition with tiny type fills 551 pages) and its events occur over many years and in several countries before the reader reaches the predictable conclusion. The main part of The Newcomes is set a decade or two after the action of Vanity Fair, and some of the characters in Vanity Fair are mentioned peripherally in The Newcomes. The narrator is Arthur Pendennis, the protagonist of Pendennis. It was illustrated by Richard Doyle, both in literal renderings of the scenes and in symbolic and fanciful depictions of events and characters.[1]