"Scribble scribble in the morning, hob and nob in the evening" was Thackeray’s routine; solitude, he wrote, "creates a muzziness and incoherency in me". A conspicuous figure even before his years of fame, he became, as his admirer Anthony Trollope said, "so well known in society as to have created many anecdotes", though with rueful memories of some awkward brushes Trollope also remarked: "He was a man to be loved even more than liked." Many did love "dear old Thack", who, as another intimate reported, inspired affectionate regard "in due proportion of nearer or remoter intercourse".

          Affectionate memories of him from a wide range of intimates and acquaintances appear in this collection, which draws upon over a hundred witnesses: members of his family, schoolfriends, literary and journalistic colleagues and rivals (including such eminences as Dickens, Disraeli, Carlyle and Charlotte Bronte), companions in the Punch set, publishers, fellows clubmen, personal secretaries, people who in their childhood had found him an ideal uncle-figure, foreign visitors, his many American friends – and some of his enemies, too.