Mrs. Perkins Ball (Illustrated by the Author)

"Mrs. Perkin's Ball," even more than "Vanity Fair" or "The Book of Snobs," gave Thackeray popularity is one of the best known remarks upon him: and probably has at least as much truth about it as most such sayings.

Thackeray, however, had been wise enough not to make them Christmas Books only, or even mainly. Dances of the cheerful Perkins kind were indeed usually given in the winter of old time; school naturally suggests Christmas holidays; and The Rose and the Ring was written to supply t...