About the book: 1849 / First published at the end of 1849 (Chapman and Hall publishing house). Due to illness, the writer was unable to illustrate the book himself, and it was published with drawings by the artist Richard Doyle. In 1846, in Frazer’s Magazine, Thackeray published “Plan for the continuation of Ivanhoe, set out in a letter to Monsieur Alexandre Dumas,” which became the basis for the basis of his fourth "Christmas Book". This parody story, which was openly burlesque and sham in nature, was directed against pseudo-historical novels, against literaryism and romantic idealization..