In Selected Letters of William Makepeace Thackeray, Edgar F. Harden provides a lively and accessible framework for selected letters, diaries, and comical illustrations of Thackeray. Harden has carefully selected documents which convey the essential biographical developments of a very interesting life and pictorial expressions of a great man of letters. He traces Thackeray's growth and development as a writer, from his school days in Southhampton to Cambridge University, which he left without a degree, to his ascendence as a writer.

In spite of his personal struggles Thackeray articulates in his letters a great exuberance for life. Harden has included seventy five of Thackeray's comical illustrations, which support and enhance the letters they accompany.