Here Thackeray reduces to an absurdity the literary fashion of the day--the vogue for startling stories and "Tales of Terror," which was high in his time, and which influenced several of the stories which precede in this volume. But while Dickens made fun, with mental reservations; while Bulwer Lytton tried to explain by rising to the heights of natural philosophy, and Maturin did not explain at all, but let his extravagant genius roam between heaven and earth--Thackeray's keen wit saw mainly one chance for exquisite literary satire and parody. At one point or another in this skit, the style of each principal sensational novelist of the day is delightfully imitated.
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