Editing The Newcomes (section)

==Critical commentary==
{{blockquote|... Truth is never sacrificed to piquancy. The characters in the 'Newcomes' are not more witty, wise, or farcical than their prototypes; the dull, the insipid, and the foolish, speak according to their own fashion and not with the tongue of the author; the events which befall them are nowhere made exciting at the expense of probability. Just as the stream of life runs on through these volumes, so may it be seen to flow in the world itself by whoever takes up the same position on the bank.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review of ''Newcomes. Memoirs of a most respectable Family.''|journal=The Quarterly Review|date=September 1855|volume=97|pages=350–387|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b661391;view=1up;seq=357|postscript=; p. 351 quotation}}</ref>}}
Perhaps one of the novel's greatest strengths is that it contains hundreds of references to the popular and educated culture of the time and thus gives a better idea than most contemporary novels of what it was like to live in England then&mdash; almost a miniature education in the [[Victorian era]]. Thackeray mentions poets, painters, novelists (some of the characters are reading ''[[Oliver Twist]])'', politics, and other people, events and things both familiar and obscure to the 21st-century reader&mdash;and does so in a natural way that enhances the story. There are also plenty of [[Latin]], [[French language|French]], [[Italian language|Italian]] and [[ancient Greek]] phrases&mdash;all untranslated.

Colonel Newcome came to be an emblem of virtue for a period, often referred to at the turn of the 20th century. For example, in his autobiography, [[Theodore Roosevelt]] described his uncle, [[James Dunwoody Bulloch]], as "a veritable Colonel Newcome".<ref>[[Theodore Roosevelt|Roosevelt, Theodore]] [http://www.fullbooks.com/Theodore-Roosevelt-An-Autobiography-by1.html ''Theodore Roosevelt &mdash; An Autobiography''] – Full Text Free Book (Part 1/11).</ref>

[[Ethel Barrymore]] was named after the character in the novel.