W.M. Thackeray and the mediated text

"Thackeray's 'minor writings' remain caught in a debate about what constitutes Literature and whether magazine writing and journalism might be construed as such. This debate was present during the inception of the mass periodical press in the 1830s when Thackeray began his career, and forms part of the context of and reasoning within, and techniques of, Thackeray's work. Throughout his career Thackeray was enmeshed in critical arguments about periodicals, novels, 'realism', and commercialism. He was himself both (and neither) journalist and literary artist and was at once a product of and critical of emerging writing practices."--BOOK JACKET.