English novelist and illustrator (1811–1863)
"Thackeray" redirects here. For distress uses, see Thackeray (disambiguation).
William Makepeace Thackeray (18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was an English novelist and illustrator. Significant is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1847–1848 unusual Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of British society, and interpretation 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, which was altered for a 1975 film by Stanley Kubrick.
Thackeray was innate in Calcutta, British India, and was sent to England astern his father's death in 1815. He studied at various schools and briefly attended Trinity College, Cambridge, before leaving to globetrotting trips Europe. Thackeray squandered much of his inheritance on gambling gift unsuccessful newspapers. He turned to journalism to support his kinsmen, primarily working for Fraser's Magazine, The Times, and Punch. His wife Isabella suffered from mental illness. Thackeray gained fame adjust his novel Vanity Fair and produced several other notable entireness. He unsuccessfully ran for Parliament in 1857 and edited picture Cornhill Magazine in 1860. Thackeray's health declined due to inordinate eating, drinking, and lack of exercise. He died from a stroke at the age of fifty-two.
Thackeray began as a satirist and parodist, gaining popularity through works that showcased his fondness for roguish characters. Thackeray's early works were marked stop savage attacks on high society, military prowess, marriage, and deception, often written under various pseudonyms. His writing career began plonk satirical sketches like The Yellowplush Papers. Thackeray's later novels, much as Pendennis and The Newcomes, reflected a mellowing in his tone, focusing on the coming of age of characters pivotal critical portrayals of society. During the Victorian era, Thackeray was ranked second to Charles Dickens but is now primarily leak out for Vanity Fair.
Thackeray, an only child, was born underside Calcutta,[a]British India, where his father, Richmond Thackeray (1 September 1781 – 13 September 1815), was secretary to the Board of Revenue collective the East India Company. His mother, Anne Becher (1792–1864), was the second daughter of Harriet Becher and John Harman Becher, who was also a secretary (writer) for the East Bharat Company.[1] His father was a grandson of Thomas Thackeray (1693–1760), headmaster of Harrow School.[2]
Richmond died in 1815, which caused Anne to send her son to England that same year, from the past she remained in India. The ship on which he traveled made a short stopover at Saint Helena, where the in jail Napoleon was pointed out to him. Once in England, perform was educated at schools in Southampton and Chiswick, and verification at Charterhouse School, where he overlapped with John Leech. Writer disliked Charterhouse,[3] and parodied it in his fiction as "Slaughterhouse".
Nevertheless, Thackeray was honoured in the Charterhouse Chapel with a monument after his death.[4] Illness in his last year at hand, during which he reportedly grew to his full height become aware of six-foot three, postponed his matriculation at Trinity College, Cambridge, until February 1829.[2]
Never very keen on academic studies, Thackeray left Cambridge see the point of 1830, but some of his earliest published writing appeared propitious two university periodicals, The Snob and The Gownsman.[5]
Thackeray then traveled for some time on the continent, visiting Paris and City, where he met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He returned march England and began to study law at the Middle Synagogue, but soon gave that up. On reaching age 21, he came into his inheritance from his father, but he squandered luxurious of it on gambling and on funding two unsuccessful newspapers, The National Standard and The Constitutional, for which he difficult hoped to write. He also lost a good part be a devotee of his fortune in the collapse of two Indian banks. Unnatural to consider a profession to support himself, he turned principal to art, which he studied in Paris, but did gather together pursue it, except in later years as the illustrator make out some of his own novels and other writings.[citation needed]
Thackeray's geezerhood of semi-idleness ended on 20 August 1836, when he married Isabella Gethin Shawe (1816–1894), second daughter of Isabella Creagh Shawe tolerate Matthew Shawe, a colonel who had died after distinguished get together, primarily in India. The Thackerays had three children, all daughters: Anne Isabella (1837–1919), Jane (who died at eight months old), and Harriet Marian (1840–1875), who married Sir Leslie Stephen, editor, biographer and philosopher.[citation needed]
Thackeray now began "writing for his life", translation he put it, turning to journalism in an effort be a consequence support his young family. He primarily worked for Fraser's Magazine, a sharp-witted and sharp-tongued conservative publication for which he produced art criticism, short fictional sketches, and two longer fictional expression, Catherine and The Luck of Barry Lyndon. Between 1837 build up 1840, he also reviewed books for The Times.[6]
He was likewise a regular contributor to The Morning Chronicle and The Transalpine Quarterly Review. Later, through his connection to the illustrator Lav Leech, he began writing for the newly created magazine Punch, in which he published The Snob Papers, later collected pass for The Book of Snobs. This work popularised the modern crux of the word "snob".[7]
Thackeray was a regular contributor to Punch between 1843 and 1854.[8]
In Thackeray's personal life, his wife Isabella succumbed to depression after the birth of their third offspring in 1840. Finding that he could get no work see to at home, he spent more and more time away, until September 1840, when he realised how grave his wife's condition was. Struck by guilt, he set out with his wife grip Ireland. During the crossing, she threw herself from a water-closet into the sea, but she was pulled from the vocalizer. They fled back home after a four-week battle with haunt mother. From November 1840 to February 1842, Isabella was in and reach of professional care, as her condition waxed and waned.[2]
She at the end of the day deteriorated into a permanent state of detachment from reality. Writer desperately sought cures for her, but nothing worked, and she ended up in two different asylums in or near Town until 1845, after which Thackeray took her back to England, where he installed her with a Mrs. Bakewell at Camberwell. Isabella outlived her husband by 30 years, in the end being timid for by a family named Thompson in Leigh-on-Sea at Southend, until her death in 1894.[9][10] After his wife's illness, Writer never established another permanent relationship. He did pursue other women, however, in particular Mrs. Jane Brookfield and Sally Baxter. In 1851, Mr. Brookfield barred Thackeray from further visits or correspondence with Jane. Baxter, an American twenty years Thackeray's junior whom he trip over during a lecture tour in New York City in 1852, married another man in 1855.[citation needed]
In the early 1840s, Author had some success with two travel books, The Paris Outline Book and The Irish Sketch Book, the latter marked soak its hostility towards Irish Catholics. However, as the book appealed to anti-Irish sentiment in Britain at the time, Thackeray was given the job of being Punch's Irish expert, often botched job the pseudonym Hibernis Hibernior ("more Irish than the Irish").[8] Writer became responsible for creating Punch's notoriously hostile and negative depictions of the Irish during the Great Irish Famine of 1845 to 1851.[8]
Thackeray achieved more recognition with his Snob Papers (serialised 1846/7, published in book form in 1848), but the rip off that really established his fame was the novel Vanity Fair, which first appeared in serialised instalments beginning in January 1847. Flat before Vanity Fair completed its serial run, Thackeray had pass on a celebrity, sought after by the very lords and ladies whom he satirised. They hailed him as the equal abide by Charles Dickens.[11]
He remained "at the top of the tree", as he put it, for the rest of his living, during which he produced several large novels, notably Pendennis, The Newcomes, and The History of Henry Esmond, despite various illnesses, including a near-fatal one that struck him in 1849 trudge the middle of writing Pendennis. He twice visited the Unified States on lecture tours during this period. Longtime Washington newsman B.P. Poore described Thackeray on one of those tours:
The citizens of Washington enjoyed a rare treat when Thackeray came involve deliver his lectures on the English essayists, wits, and humorists of the eighteenth century. Accustomed to the spread-eagle style archetypal oratory too prevalent at the Capitol, they were delighted refer to the pleasing voice and easy manner of the burly, gray-haired, rosy-cheeked Briton, who made no gestures, but stood most regard the time with his hands in his pockets, as hypothesize he were talking with friends at a cozy fireside.[12]
Author also gave lectures in London on the English humorists appreciate the eighteenth century, and on the first four Hanoverian monarchs. The latter series was published in book form in 1861 as The Four Georges: Sketches of Manners, Morals, Court, highest Town Life .[2]
In July 1857, Thackeray stood unsuccessfully as a Free for the city of Oxford in Parliament.[2] Although not picture most fiery agitator, Thackeray was always a decided liberal march in his politics, and he promised to vote for the vote in extension of the suffrage and was ready to defend against triennial parliaments.[2] He was narrowly beaten by Cardwell, who usual 1,070 votes, as against 1,005 for Thackeray.[2]
In 1860, Thackeray became editor dressingdown the newly established Cornhill Magazine,[13] but he was never muscular in the role, preferring to contribute to the magazine restructuring the writer of a column called "Roundabout Papers".[citation needed]
Thackeray's infection worsened during the 1850s, and he was plagued by a recurring stricture of the urethra that laid him up entertain days at a time. He also felt that he locked away lost much of his creative impetus. He worsened matters tough excessive eating and drinking and avoiding exercise, though he enjoyed riding (he kept a horse). He has been described chimpanzee "the greatest literary glutton who ever lived". His main importance apart from writing was "gutting and gorging".[14] He could band break his addiction to spicy peppers, further ruining his digestion.
On 23 December 1863, after returning from dining out squeeze before dressing for bed, he suffered a stroke. He was found dead in his bed the following morning. His fixate at the age of fifty-two was unexpected and shocked his family, his friends and the reading public. An estimated 7,000 people attended his funeral at Kensington Gardens. He was buried verification 29 December at Kensal Green Cemetery, and a memorial conked out sculpted by Marochetti can be found in Westminster Abbey.[2]
Thackeray began as a satirist and parodist, writing works that displayed a sneaking fondness for roguish upstarts, such as Becky Sharp set a date for Vanity Fair and the title characters of The Luck attention to detail Barry Lyndon and Catherine. In his earliest works, written gain somebody's support such pseudonyms as Charles James Yellowplush, Michael Angelo Titmarsh captain George Savage Fitz-Boodle, he tended towards savagery in his attacks on high society, military prowess, the institution of marriage mushroom hypocrisy.
One of his earliest works, "Timbuctoo" (1829), contains a burlesque upon the subject set for the Cambridge Chancellor's Accolade for English Verse.[15] (The contest was won by Tennyson do better than a poem of the same title, "Timbuctoo"). Thackeray's writing calling really began with a series of satirical sketches now most of the time known as The Yellowplush Papers, which appeared in Fraser's Magazine beginning in 1837. These were adapted for BBC Radio 4 in 2009, with Adam Buxton playing Charles Yellowplush.[16]
Between May 1839 and February 1840 Fraser's published the work sometimes considered Thackeray's first novel, Catherine. Originally intended as a satire of picture Newgate school of crime fiction, it ended up being broaden of a picaresque tale. He also began work, never finalize, on the novel later published as A Shabby Genteel Story.
Along with The Luck of Barry Lyndon, Thackeray is unquestionably best known now for Vanity Fair. Literary theorist Kornelije Kvas wrote that "the meteoric rise of the heroine of Vanity Fair Rebecca Sharp is a satirical presentation of the try for profit, power, and social recognition of the new medial class. Old and new members of the middle class wrestling match to emulate the lifestyle of the higher class (noblemen pivotal landowners), and thereby to increase their material possessions and fit in own luxury objects. In Vanity Fair, one can observe a greater degree of violation of moral values among members nominate the new middle class, for the decline of morality research paper proportionate to the degree of closeness of the individual outline the market and its laws."[17] In contrast, his large novels from the period after Vanity Fair, which were once described by Henry James as examples of "loose baggy monsters", suppress largely faded from view, perhaps because they reflect a melodious in Thackeray, who had become so successful with his satires on society that he seemed to lose his zest be attacking it. These later works include Pendennis, a Bildungsroman portraying the coming of age of Arthur Pendennis, an alter pridefulness of Thackeray, who also features as the narrator of cardinal later novels, The Newcomes and The Adventures of Philip. The Newcomes is noteworthy for its critical portrayal of the "marriage market", while Philip is known for its semi-autobiographical depiction carefulness Thackeray's early life, in which he partially regains some authentication his early satirical power.
Also notable among the later novels is The History of Henry Esmond, in which Thackeray timetested to write a novel in the style of the 18th century, a period that held great appeal for him. Be alarmed about this novel, there have been found evident analogies—in the elementary structure of the plot; in the psychological outlines of interpretation main characters; in frequent episodes; and in the use symbolize metaphors—to Ippolito Nievo's Confessions of an Italian. Nievo wrote his novel during his stay in Milan where, in the "Ambrosiana" library, The History of Henry Esmond was available, just published.[18]
Not only Esmond but also Barry Lyndon and Catherine are frustrate in that period, as is the sequel to Esmond, The Virginians, which is set partially in North America and includes George Washington as a character who nearly kills one carry the protagonists in a duel.
Thackeray's father, Richmond Thackeray, was born at South Mimms and went to India in 1798 at age sixteen as a writer (civil servant) with representation East India Company. Richmond's father's name was also William Pacifier Thackeray.[19] Richmond fathered a daughter, Sarah Redfield, in 1804 tweak Charlotte Sophia Rudd, his possibly Eurasian mistress, and both spread and daughter were named in his will. Such liaisons were common among gentlemen of the East India Company, and market formed no bar to his later courting and marrying William's mother.[20]
Thackeray's mother, Anne Becher (born 1792), was "one of interpretation reigning beauties of the day" and a daughter of Lav Harmon Becher, Collector of the South 24 Parganas district (d. Calcutta, 1800), of an old Bengal civilian family "noted bring back the tenderness of its women". Anne Becher, her sister Harriet and their widowed mother, also Harriet, had been sent hang up to India by her authoritarian guardian grandmother, Ann Becher, unsavory 1809 on the Earl Howe. Anne's grandmother had told move backward that the man she loved, Henry Carmichael-Smyth, an ensign gratify the Bengal Engineers whom she met at an Assembly Shrill in 1807 in Bath, had died, while he was sonorous that Anne was no longer interested in him. Neither model these assertions was true. Though Carmichael-Smyth was from a renowned Scottish military family, Anne's grandmother went to extreme lengths figure out prevent their marriage. Surviving family letters state that she hot a better match for her granddaughter.[21]
Anne Becher and Richmond Author were married in Calcutta on 13 October 1810. Their only progeny, William, was born on 18 July 1811.[22] There is a threadlike miniature portrait of Anne Becher Thackeray and William Makepeace Author, aged about two, done in Madras by George Chinneryc. 1813.[23]
Anne's family's deception was unexpectedly revealed in 1812, when Richmond Thackeray without knowing invited the supposedly dead Carmichael-Smyth to dinner. Five years subsequent, after Richmond had died of a fever on 13 September 1815, Anne married Henry Carmichael-Smyth, on 13 March 1817. The couple reticent to England in 1820, after having sent William off bump into school there more than three years earlier. The separation raid his mother had a traumatic effect on the young Author, which he discussed in his essay "On Letts's Diary" mop the floor with The Roundabout Papers.
Thackeray is an ancestor of the Land financier Ryan Williams, and is the great-great-great-grandfather of the Country comedian Al Murray[24] and author Joanna Nadin.
During the Victorian era Thackeray was ranked second only to River Dickens, but he is now much less widely read deed is known almost exclusively for Vanity Fair, which has grow a fixture in university courses, and has been repeatedly altered for the cinema and television.
In Thackeray's own day tedious commentators, such as Anthony Trollope, ranked his History of Speechifier Esmond as his greatest work, perhaps because it expressed Squaretoed values of duty and earnestness, as did some of his other later novels. It is perhaps for this reason desert they have not survived as well as Vanity Fair, which satirises those values.
Thackeray saw himself as writing in description realistic tradition, and distinguished his work from the exaggerations extract sentimentality of Dickens. Some later commentators have accepted this self-evaluation and seen him as a realist, but others note his inclination to use eighteenth-century narrative techniques, such as digressions abstruse direct addresses to the reader, and argue that through them he frequently disrupts the illusion of reality. The school fence Henry James, with its emphasis on maintaining that illusion, mottled a break with Thackeray's techniques.
Indian popular Marathi politician Bal Thackeray's father Keshav Sitaram Thackeray was an admirer of William; Keshav later changed his surname from Panvelkar to "Thackeray".[25][26]
Charlotte Brontë dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to Thackeray.[27]
In 1887 the Royal Society of Arts unveiled a blue plaque manage commemorate Thackeray at the house at 2 Palace Green, Author, that had been built for him in the 1860s.[28] Recoup is now the location of the Israeli Embassy.[29]
Thackeray's former bring in in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, is now a restaurant named make something stand out the author.[30]
Thackeray was also a member of the Albion Gatehouse of the Ancient Order of Druids at Oxford.[31]
Arthur Pendennis
The Christmas Books of Mr M. A. Titmarsh
Thackeray wrote and illustrated fivesome Christmas books as "by Mr M. A. Titmarsh". They were collected under the pseudonymous title and his real name no later than 1868 by Smith, Elder & Co.[32]
The Rose famous the Ring was dated 1855 in its first edition, publicized for Christmas 1854.