The Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. Provenance: Lulu Glaser (1874-1958).

Title: The Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray.
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray.
Edition: Standard Library Edition.
Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
Printer: The Riverside Press.
Publication date: Copyright 1899.

Individual works: I & II. Vanity Fair [480 p., 460 p.], III. & IV. Penndennis [462 p., 456 p.], V. Memoirs of Yellowflush, etc. [478 p.], VI. Burlesque, etc. [458 p.], VII. Samuel Titmarsch, etc. [518 p.], VIII. Barry Lyndon - Denis Duval [456 p.], IX. & X. The Newcombs [482 p., 478 p.], XI. Paris Sketchbook, etc. [501 p.], XII. Irish Sketchbook [418p.], XIII. The Four Georges, etc. [522 p.], XIV. Henry Edmond [485 p.], XV. & XVI. The Virginians [473 p., 472 p.], XVII. & XVIII. Philip [449 p., 472 p.], XIX. Roundabout Papers, etc. [504 p.], XX. Christmas Stories, etc. [524 p.], XXI. Contributions to Punch [455 p.], Miscellaneous Sketches [501 p.].

Description: 10, 074 Pp. total. 8vo. Complete in 22 volumes. Finely bound in 3/4 brown Morocco, hardcovers feature gilt stamped/embossed title/design on spine covers/boards and corner caps, matching marble boards and endpapers, gilt upper leaf edges, tissue-guarded frontispieces, profusely illustrated throughout volumes, by the author and others, and with introductory notes setting forth the history of the several works.

Dimensions: 8.25 H x 5.75 D x 1.5 (31.25 overall) W inches.

About the author: Perhaps best known as a novelist, William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta, India, in 1811. His father died when he was five, and Thackeray was sent to England to be educated. He eventually attended the Charterhouse School—infamous for its discipline—and Trinity College, Cambridge, which he left after two years. After traveling to the continent and leading a life of socializing and gambling, he worked as a freelance journalist, submitting work to Punch, the Times, and other publications. Some of his novels were also published in serialized form in magazines. He wrote travel books, among them The Paris Sketch Book (1840) and From Cornhill to Grand Cairo (1844), and novels, including Vanity Fair (1847–48), Pendennis (1848–50), The Newcomes (1853–55), and The Virginians (1857–59). Thackeray's wife suffered from depression, and in later life, he was frequently occupied with searching for a cure for her illness and raising their two children.

Thackeray first wrote poetry while he was a student at Trinity. He wrote occasional poems, ballads, comic poems, and parodies, and some of his poems were published in Punch. In On the Art of Thackeray, H.N. Wethered noted that Thackeray "set the fashion for a type of light accomplished society verse which was remarkable for its vigour, daintiness and sense of rhythm." In example, let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim. Attacking is his only secret. "Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb." [Barry Lyndon (1844, Ch. 13)]. "Thackeray died, unexpectedly, in London in 1863.

Provenance: Ex-Libris bookplate of American stage and silent screen actress Lulu Glaser [1874-1958] designed by Sidney Lawton Smith [SLS]* affixed inside front board of each volume. Gift inscription; "To my dear Lulu, Mama. Dec. 25, 1899." [inscribed by Jane Stuchell-Glaser 1831-1901].

Lulu Glaser embodied the 1890s ideal of the American girl--vibrant, pert, charming, abrupt, athletic, and bold. An amateur singer discovered by light opera impresario Francis Wilson, she was hired as a teenage chorister and won respect for her diligence, her quick memory, and her sure pitch. When the company's soubrette Marie Jansen fell ill, Wilson elevated Lulu from the chorus to the lead. Her success convinced Wilson that he need not meet Jansen's demands for higher play. When Jansen departed, Glaser made the most of her chance, throwing herself into "The Merry Monarch" and "Ermine." In the course of the 1894-95 season, she became the most energetic young woman on the American stage.

Glaser had the uncanny ability to seem more alive than anyone else in a scene. Her fluffy hair shivered. Her eyes scintillated. Her motions seemed impetuosity incarnate. When dancing, she pranced and vibrated. When singing, she throbbed. As long as she seemed unstudied and young, she seemed winsome. When the vehicles that she performed became perfunctory in plot and characterization, as they did during the first decade of the 20th century, her vivacity seemed contrived. Inevitably given her training and disposition, her dramatic career was restricted to comic opera, and the demands upon her vocal dramaturgy rarely ventured beyond being charming and mischievous. Yet for a decade no one in musical theater--not even Lillian Russell--better conveyed the fun of being female.

As the character portraits indicate, Lulu was cute rather than beautiful, forward and engaging rather than aloof and statuesque. Her stage career lasted well into the second decade of the 20th century, faltering finally in the operetta "The Girl and the Kaiser." Victor Herbert composed "Dolly Dollars" for her, one of his lesser efforts. The highlight of her career was the 1902 production of "Dolly Vardon" where her buoyancy suited the characterzation, the costumes and historic setting tempered her inclination toward slang and new woman sass, and the Julian Edwards songs didn't tax her vocal range.

For ten years, beginning in 1907, she appeared periodically in vaudeville before retiring to a comfortable life in the countryside of Connecticut in 1917. Lulu Glaser's papers are housed at Princeton University and University of Pennsylvania, consists of various artifacts, letters, photographs, and other items belonging to Lulu Glaser, including production files and family papers.

*SLS bookplate - Sidney Lawton Smith was one of the premier American bookplate artists of the early twentieth century. His studio was in Boston and his clients were among the most prominent book collectors of his time. Each bookplate is discreetly signed "SLS" inside frame of plate, located at base of lower right page of the open book, see images.

Note: March 2020, a framed single Lulu Glaser ex-libris bookplate, autographed by Sidney Lawton Smith (SLS), came up for auction, estimate of value $200-400. Each book is personalized, so a total of 22 bookplates present.