Excerpt from The History of Samuel Titmarsh: And the Great Hoggarty Diamond; Men's Wives the Book of Snobs The Great Hoggarty Diamond, like most of the work given in the last volume, belongs to the period when the shadow was most over Thackeray: and perhaps in a way it helped, all guiltlessly, to make that Shadow darker. It was actually refused by Blac.'ra oorl - one of the rare instances of utter and unaccountable mistake on the part of the usually keen-sighted conductors of that periodical. Although received and published by Fraser, it does not seem to have been liked by the public (a justification, some may say, Of the Blaclrwood refusal), and it is said that the author was asked to cut it short. This is not at all improbable, for the latter part is certainly huddled up and not a few things in it would have borne. And actually invited, ex pansion in Thackeray's best manner. Nay, its ill-luck seems not to have entirely abandoned it yet for the preface Of the Biographical Edition' volume in which it occurs says little or nothing about it, and one careful commentator on Thackeray has pronounced it 'dull'. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.