William Make Peace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray, (born July 18, 1811, Calcutta, India—died Dec. 24, 1863, London, Eng.), English novelist whose reputation rests chiefly on Vanity Fair(1847–48), a novel of the Napoleonic period in England, and The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. (1852), set in the early 18th century. Thackeray was the only son of Richmond Thackeray, an administrator in the East India Company. His father died in 1815, and in 1816 Thackeray was sent home to England. After attending several grammar schools Thackeray went in 1822 toCharterhouse, the London public (private) school, where he led a rather lonely and miserable existence. He was happier while studying at Trinity College, Cambridge (1828–30). In 1830 he left Cambridge without taking a degree, and during 1831–33 he studied law at the Middle Temple, London. He then considered painting as a profession; his artistic gifts are seen in his letters and many of his early writings, which are amusingly and energetically illustrated. He started his career as a hardworking and prolific professional journalist. The 19th century was the age of the magazine, which had been developed to meet the demand for family reading among the growing middle class. In the late 1830s Thackeray became a notable contributor of articles on varied topics to Fraser’s Magazine, The New Monthly Magazine, and, later, to Punch. His work was unsigned or written under such pen names as Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh, Fitz-Boodle, The Fat Contributor, or Ikey Solomons. Major Gahagan (1838–39), a fantasy of soldiering in India; Catherine (1839–40). The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond (1841), The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844; revised as The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, 1856), which is a historical novel and his first full- length work. The serial publication in 1847–48 of his novel Vanity Fair brought Thackeray both fame and prosperity, and from then on he was an established author on the English scene. Vanity Fair (1847–48), is the first work published under his own name. Set in the second decade of the 19th century, the period of the Regency, the novel deals mainly with the interwoven fortunes of two contrasting women, Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp. The latter, an unprincipled adventuress, is the leading personage and is perhaps the most memorable character Thackeray created. Subtitled “A Novel Without a Hero,” the novel is deliberately antiheroic: Thackeray states that in this novel his object is to “indicate . that we are for the most part . foolish and selfish people . all eager after vanities.” The wealthy, wellborn, passive Amelia Sedley and the ambitious, energetic, scheming, provocative, and essentially amoral Becky Sharp, daughter of a poor drawing master, are contrasted in their fortunes and reactions to life, but the contrast of their characters is not the simple one between moral good and evil—both are presented with dispassionate sympathy. Becky is the character around whom all the men play their parts in an upper middle-class and aristocratic background. Amelia marries George Osborne, but George, just before he is killed at the Battle of Waterloo, is ready to desert his young wife for Becky, who has fought her way up through society to marriage with Rawdon Crawley, a young officer of good family. Crawley, disillusioned, finally leaves Becky, and in the end virtue apparently triumphs, Amelia marries her lifelong admirer, Colonel Dobbin, and Becky settles down to genteel living and charitable works. The History of Pendennis (1848–50), which is partly fictionalized autobiography. In it, Thackeray traces the youthful career of Arthur Pendennis—his first love affair, his experiences at “Oxbridge University,” his working as a London journalist, and so on—achieving a convincing portrait of a much-tempted young man. Turning to the historical novel, Thackeray chose the reign of Queen Anne for the period of The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., 3 vol. (1852). Thackeray returned to the contemporary scene in his novel The Newcomes(1853–55). This work is essentially a detailed study of prosperous middle-class society and is centred upon the family of the title. Col. Thomas Newcome returns to London from India to be with his son Clive. The Virginians (1857–59), Thackeray’s next novel, is set partly in America and partly in England in the latter half of the 18th century and is concerned mostly with the vicissitudes in the lives of two brothers, George and Henry Warrington, who are the grandsons of Henry Esmond, the hero of his earlier novel. Thackeray wrote two other serial novels, Lovel the Widower (1860) and The Adventures of Philip (1861–62). He died after having begun writing the novel Denis Duval. In his own time Thackeray was regarded as the only possible rival to Dickens. His pictures of contemporary life were obviously real and were accepted as such by the middle classes. A great professional, he provided novels, stories, essays, and verses for his audience, and he toured as a nationally known lecturer. He wrote to be read aloud in the long Victorian family evenings, and his prose has the lucidity, spontaneity, and pace of good reading material Thackeray’s high reputation as a novelist continued unchallenged to the end of the 19th century but then began to decline. Vanity Fair is still his most interesting and readable work and has retained its place among the great historical novels in the English language. He died in 1863, a commemorative bust of him was placed in Westminster Abbey. DONE BY T.MANGAIYAKARASI.M.A.,M.PHIL.,SET ASSISTANT PROFESSOR GURUNANAK COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS) VELACHERRY CHENNAI.

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