The novel shows its serial origin: it is very long (an undated but clearly very old edition with tiny type fills 551 pages) and its events occur over many years and in several countries before the reader reaches the predictable conclusion.

It was illustrated by Richard Doyle, both in literal renderings of the scenes and in symbolic and fanciful depictions of events and characters.

Over several generations the Newcome family rises into wealth and respectability as bankers and begin to marry into the minor aristocracy.

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.

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—and does so in a natural way that enhances the story.