His first great work remains entirely neglected by the critics. “Barry Lyndon” is a marvelous piece of sustained irony, the story of a capable scoundrel, who makes his way in the great world by being just a little sharper than the people he meets, and a little more honest with himself. You recall how Milton, a devout and orthodox Puritan, could not refrain from making Satan heroic, because Satan was a rebel and Milton was another. We notice the same phenomenon in this case of Barry Lyndon, who does every kind of rascal thing; yet the fact remains, he is living by his wits, he is surviving in a world of privilege and power, and Thackeray is secretly thrilled by him. That doubtless accounts for the unpopularity of the story; for the average novel reader likes to have his villains labeled, and not to mix his blacks and his whites. The instinctive rebel in Thackeray shows himself still more plainly in “Vanity Fair.” This time the villain is Becky Sharp, an utterly heartless intriguer, selling her sex for money and power. Nevertheless, she is a woman “on her own,” a little tiger-cat backed into a corner, with all the world poking sticks at her; she fights back, and gets the best of her enemies, and Thackeray cannot help making her the most interesting figure in the book. As a respectable Victorian sentimentalist, he did his best to provide us with a foil for Becky, giving us Amelia Sedley, the perfect, submissive, adoring female. The daughter of a wealthy merchant, Amelia has never had a moment’s discomfort in her life. She is a model of the Victorian virtues; she honors and serves the male members of her family, no matter how selfish and worthless they may be. She has the brains of a medium-sized rabbit, and after we have got to know her, we understand why Victorian gentlemen sought refuge in interesting mistresses. It has been said that in Thackeray’s novels all the good people are fools and all the evil people are clever. Beatrix Esmond, the one woman who rivals Becky Sharp in interest, is a cold, proud beauty, without even Becky’s excuse of poverty; she schemes to marry a duke, and when he is killed in a duel, she seeks to become the mistress of a prince, and ends ignominously as the wife of a tutor and the widow of a bishop. The Anti-Socialist Union of Great Britain, which exists to fight the “Reds,” should begin its labors by excluding from all libraries these devastating pictures of the manners and morals of the ruling classes.