This collection gathers together the works by William Makepeace Thackeray in a single, convenient, high quality, and extremely low priced Kindle volume! A Legend of the Rhine A Little Dinner at Timmins’s Ballads Barber Cox and the Cutting of His Comb Burlesques Catherine, a Story Dr. Birch and His Young Friends Men’s Wives Mrs. Perkins’s Ball Novels by Eminent Hands Our Street Rebecca and Rowena; A Romance Upon Romance Roundabout Papers Stubbs’s Calendar; or, the Fatal Boots The Adventures of Philip on His Way through the World; Shewing Who Robbed Him, Who Helped Him, and Who Passed Him By The Bedford-Row Conspiracy The Book of Snobs The Christmas Books of Mr. M.A. Titmarsh The Diary of C. Jeames De La Pluche The Fitz-Boodle Papers The History of Henry A Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne The History of Pendennis, His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond The History of the Next French Revolution, from a Forthcoming History of Europe The Kickleburys on the Rhine The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman The Luck of Barry Lyndon, a Romance of the Last Century The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush The Newcomes, Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family The Rose and the Ring; or the History of Prince Giglio and Prince Bulbo The Second Funeral of Napoleon The Story of Mary Ancel The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan The Virginians, a Tale of the Last Century The Wolves and the Lamb Vanity Fair, Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society An Essay on the Genius of George Cruikshank John Leech’s Pictures of Life and Character The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century The Four Sketches of Manners, Morals, Court and Town Life Little Travels and Roadside Sketches Notes of a Journey From Cornhill to Grand Cairo The Irish Sketch-Book The Paris Sketch Book ABOUT THE AUTHOR During the Victorian era, Thackeray was ranked second only to Charles Dickens, but he is now much less read and is known almost exclusively for Vanity Fair. In that novel he was able to satirise whole swaths of humanity while retaining a light touch. It also features his most memorable character, the engagingly roguish Becky Sharp. As a result, unlike Thackeray's other novels, it remains popular with the general reading public; it is a standard fixture in university courses and has been repeatedly adapted for movies and television. In Thackeray's own day, some commentators, such as Anthony Trollope, ranked his History of Henry Esmond as his greatest work, perhaps because it expressed Victorian values of duty and earnestness, as did some of his other later novels. It is perhaps for this reason that they have not survived as well as Vanity Fair, which satirises those values. Thackeray saw himself as writing in the realistic tradition and distinguished himself from the exaggerations and 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 and talking to the reader, and argue that through them he frequently disrupts the illusion of reality. The school of Henry James, with its emphasis on maintaining that illusion, marked a break with Thackeray's techniques.
Author
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist, satirist, and journalist, best known for his keen social commentary and his novel Vanity Fair (1847–1848). His works often explored themes of ambition, hypocrisy, and the moral failings of British society, making him one of the most significant literary figures of the Victorian era. Born in Calcutta, British India, he was sent to England for his education after his father’s death. He attended Charterhouse School, where he developed a distaste for the rigid school system, and later enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge. However, he left without earning a degree, instead traveling in Europe and pursuing artistic ambitions. After losing much of his inheritance due to bad investments, Thackeray turned to writing for a living. He contributed satirical sketches, essays, and stories to periodicals such as Fraser’s Magazine and Punch, gradually building a reputation for his sharp wit and keen observational skills. His breakthrough came with Vanity Fair, a panoramic satire of English society that introduced the enduring character of Becky Sharp, a resourceful and amoral social climber. Thackeray’s later novels, including Pendennis (1848–1850), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), and The Newcomes (1853–1855), continued to explore the lives of the English upper and middle classes, often focusing on the contrast between personal virtue and social ambition. His historical novel Henry Esmond was particularly praised for its detailed 18th-century setting and complex characterization. In addition to his fiction, Thackeray was a noted public speaker and essayist, delivering lectures on the English humorists of the 18th century and on The Four Georges, a critical look at the British monarchy. Despite his literary success, he lived with personal struggles, including the mental illness of his wife, Isabella, which deeply affected him. He remained devoted to his two daughters and was known for his kindness and generosity among his friends and colleagues. His works remain widely read, appreciated for their incisive humor, rich characterizations, and unflinching critique of social pretensions.
