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William Makepeace ThackerayEnglish Novelist, Comic Illustrator and Journalist
Brief biography of 19th century author William Makepeace Thackeray, famous for his works Vanity Fair and The Book of Snobs.
William Makepeace Thackeray was one of the greatest English novelists of the nineteenth century. He was also a comic illustrator and a journalist. A prolific writer in many genres, he is famous for Vanity Fair. His other key works include Barry Lyndon, Pendennis, Henry Esmond and The Virginians. His best stories are funny, satirical and historical, carefully observed studies of the society he lived in. Thackeray's books were more realistic than most other novels of his time. He showed his characters with a balanced bad points as well as good. As in real life too, the bad characters sometimes succeeded and prosper more than the good ones. He died on December 24, 1863 at the age of 52. Early Life of ThackerayThackeray was born on July 18, 1811, in Calcutta, India, the only son of a British civil servant of the East India Company. His father died when he was five years old and his mother remarried so he was sent home to England. He was educated in England – in London and then at Cambridge University, which he left without a degree. Later, he studied law in London and art in Paris. In 1836 he married a poor Irish girl, Isabella Shaw. They had three daughters, but Isabella became insane, making the family split up. The Writer and Comic IllustratorHis first venture in print was a parody of Alfred Lord Tennyson's prize poem Timbuctoo. After using up his inherited fortune in travelling abroad, he decided to improve his financial situation by becoming a full-time journalist. For magazines he wrote book reviews, stories and amusing articles. He often used ridiculous pen names such as Fitz-Boodle. His witty and humorous sketches of London characters written for the famous satirical magazine Punch reappeared in 1848 as The Book of Snobs. The novel Vanity Fair made Thackeray famous. This tale of two middle-class London families has two heroines: scheming ambitious Becky Sharp and gentle, good-natured but naïve and often 'silly' Amelia Sedley. Thackeray did not believe in ideal hero or heroine because to him no one is perfect. Thackeray's Works
Sources:Chambers Biographical Dictionary, New Edition, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002 Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby, Cambridge University Press, 1993 Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse plc, 1994
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