Thackeray's The Christmas Books of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh (1847-55) was published under his familiar pen name, M.A. Titmarsh. It is an anthology of five short novels, each of which criticises English nobility. It includes The Kickleburys on the Rhine, in which the author shares a steamer with an upper-class family. It also contains Mrs. Perkin's Ball, Our Street, Dr. Birch and His Young Friends, and The Rose and the Ring, a satirical story dealing with the lives and fates of four royal cousins.