roguish Becky Sharp.As a result,unlike Thackeray's other novels,it remains popular with the general reading public;it is a standard fixture in university courses and has been repeatedly adapted for movies and television In Thackeray's own day,some commentators,such as Anthony Trollope,ranked his History of Henry Esmondas his greatest work,perhaps because it expressed Victorian values ofduty and earnestness,as did some ofhis other later novels.It is perhaps for this reason that they have not survived as well as Vanity Fair,which satirises those values. Thackeray saw himselfas writing in the realistic traditionand distinguished himself from theexaggerationsand sentimentality ofDickens.Some later commentators have accepted this self-evaluation and seen him as a realist,but others note his inclinationto useeighteenth-century narrative techniques,suchas digressions and talkingto the reader,and argue that through them he frequently disrupts the illusion of reality.The school of Henry James,with its emphasis on maintaining that illusion,marked a break with Thackeray's techniquesroguish Becky Sharp. As a result, unlike Thackeray's other novels, it remains popular with the general reading public; it is a standard fixture in university courses and has been repeatedly adapted for movies and television. In Thackeray's own day, some commentators, such as Anthony Trollope, ranked his History of Henry Esmond as his greatest work, perhaps because it expressed Victorian values of duty and earnestness, as did some of his other later novels. It is perhaps for this reason that they have not survived as well as Vanity Fair, which satirises those values. Thackeray saw himself as writing in the realistic tradition and distinguished himself from the exaggerations and sentimentality of Dickens. Some later commentators have accepted this self-evaluation and seen him as a realist, but others note his inclination to use eighteenth-century narrative techniques, such as digressions and talking to the reader, and argue that through them he frequently disrupts the illusion of reality. The school of Henry James, with its emphasis on maintaining that illusion, marked a break with Thackeray's techniques