2 OCTOBER 1999, page 49

All Is Vanity And Vanity Fair Is All

Victoria Glendinning THACKERAY by D. J. Taylor Chatto, £25, pp. 494 D ickens and Trotlope are, as it were, alive and well, sustained by circles and soci- eties of devoted......

Reversing Family History

Petronella Wyatt THE SINGING LINE by Alice Thomson Chatto, £16.99, pp. 304 I n 1855 the authoress's 18-year-old great- great-grandmother decided to marry a man she hardly knew.......