"One afternoon, when he called in Peterborough Court he had a small brown paper parcel with him, and opened it to show me his two careful drawings for the page plates to the first number of _Vanity Fair_. Tied up with them was the manuscript of the earlier part of the book, of which he had several times spoken to me, referring to the quaint character that Chiswick Mall--within a stone's throw of which I was then living--still retained. His present intention, he told me, was to see Bradbury & Evans, and offer the work to them.... In little more than half an hour Thackeray again made his appearance, and, with a beaming face, gleefully informed me that he had settled the business. 'Bradbury & Evans,' he said, 'accepted so readily that I am deuced sorry I didn't ask them for another tenner. I am certain they would have given it.' He then explained that he had named fifty guineas per part, including the two sheets of letterpress, a couple of etchings, and the initials at the commencement of the chapters. He reckoned the text, I remember, at no more than five-and-twenty shillings a page, the two etchings at six guineas each, while as for the few initials at the beginnings of the chapters, he threw those in." Following the plan of Chapman and Hall, who issued Dickens's works in monthly parts in green covers, and of Charles James Lever's publishers, who brought him out in pink, Bradbury and Evans published _Vanity Fair_ in yellow-covered numbers dated January, 1847, to July, 1848, and costing one shilling a part. The title on these paper covers ran: _Vanity Fair: Pen And Pencil Sketches Of English Society. By W. M. Thackeray [Two lines] London: Published At The Punch Office, 85, Fleet Street. [One line] 1847._, and there was a woodcut vignette. There are numerous illustrations in the text, and each part has two plates, etchings, except the last, which has three and the engraved title-page. The last part as published contained the title-page, dedication, "Before the Curtain," a preface, table of contents, and list of plates. The earliest issues contain, on page 336, a woodcut of the Marquis of Steyne, which was afterward suppressed, the type from pages 336 to 440 being shifted to fill the vacancy. In the first edition, too, the title at the head of Chapter I is in rustic type. At first the novel did not sell well; it was even questioned whether it might not be best to stop its publication. But later in the year, owing to some cause, perhaps the eulogistic mention in Miss Brontë's preface to _Jane Eyre_, or, perhaps, a favorable review in the _Edinburgh Review_, its success became assured. Mrs. Carlyle, writing to her husband, says: "Very good indeed, beats Dickens out of the World." Octavo.