William Makepeace Thackeray
1) Vanity fair
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I think I could be a good woman, if I had five thousand a year, observes beautiful and clever Becky Sharp, one of the wickedest and most appealing women in all of literature. Becky is just one of the many fascinating figures that populate William Makepeace Thackeray 's wonderfully satirical panorama of upper-middle-class life and manners in London at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Scorned for her lack of money and breeding, Becky must use...
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First published in serial form as The Luck of Barry Lyndon in 1844 and later reissued under the title The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq., Thackeray's picaresque novel abounds with the exploits and intrigues of Redmond Barry, a ruined member of the Irish gentry, who uses every means at his disposal to become a member of the English aristocracy.
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Everyman's library. Fiction volume no. 507-508
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English
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Two brothers find themselves on opposite sides of the Revolutionary War. 'To endure is greater than to dare, to tire out hostile fortune, to be daunted by no difficulty, to keep heart when all have lost it, to go through intrigue spotless, to forgo even ambition when the end is gained: who can say this is not greatness?' The Virginians is a sequel to Henry Esmond, and tells the story of his twin grandsons, George and Henry Warrington. Both become...
4) Barry Lyndon
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Eager to leave his humble beginnings, Redmond Barry, runs multiple scams, conning his way into the military and pursuing the fortune of a young widow.
For every momentous achievement, he's riddled with a bittersweet result.
Redmond Barry is born into a poor Irish family and desires to become a man of status and means. Although ambitious, he's naturally mischievous and has no interest in doing things the right way. After falling into debt, he joins...
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When Fairy Blackstick created a magical rose and ring, she did not anticipate their existence to be so troublesome. With the power to warp perception, the rose and the ring each make their bearer seem beautiful and irresistibly charming. However, as they are passed down, the magic of the items had been forgotten, leaving their new owners clueless of this ability. The ring resides in the Paflagonia kingdom. Giglio, the King's nephew, is the rightful...
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In this sweeping novel that spans decades, Thackeray tells of the virtuous and upstanding Colonel Thomas Newcome and of his son Clive. After Clive's mother dies, he is sent to school and studies his true passion, art. Set in the mid 1800s, the novel explores the theme of life repeating itself from one generation to the next-for example, the tendency to sacrifice love in favor of marrying for financial security or for social position. A masterful portrayal...
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Originally published in two volumes in 1858-59, this historical novel is a sequel to Henry Esmond and a prequel of sorts to Pendennis. It follows Esmond's twin grandsons, George and Henry Warrington, as they try, in different ways, to crawl out from beneath the thumb of their mother. They may succeed-but they may also be seriously deceived.
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Book of Snobs is a collection of satirical works by William Makepeace Thackeray first published in the magazine Punch as The Snobs of England, By One of Themselves. Published in 1848, the book was serialised in 1846/47 around the same time as Vanity Fair.
While the word 'snob' had been in use since the end of the 18th century Thackeray's adoption of the term to refer to people who look down on others who are "socially inferior" quickly gained popularity....
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A continent-spanning adventure featuring one of literature's greatest rogues Redmond Barry has almost all the qualities of a gentleman: he speaks well, has learned courtly etiquette, and can hold his own with a sword in hand. But passion is his downfall-passion for life, for excitement, and unfortunately, for his cousin Nora. When he almost kills Nora's suitor in a duel, Barry flees to Dublin, and the adventure of his life begins. A consummate...
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In this book of trenchant essays-framed as letters to a fictional nephew, "Bob"-Thackeray documents his variously amusing, annoying, and appalling experiences in Britain's capital city. He attends balls, dinners, children's parties, gentlemen's clubs, the opera, and even a public hanging, and has a wicked observation to make about each.
11) Stray Papers
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English
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This 1901 treasury of wit, assembled by Thackeray's biographer Lewis Melville, covers the great English satirist's career and collects early sketches of some of his most famous characters. The book includes "Letter from Mrs. Ramsbottom," "Poles Offering Corn," "The Choice of a Loaf," "Little Spitz," and more.
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"Shewing Who Robbed Him, Who Helped Him, and Who Passed Him By" is the subtitle of the last (1861-62) complete novel by the master English satirist. This semiautobiographical look back at the rollicking misadventures of a young heir is narrated by Thackeray's alter-ego, the hero of his earlier coming-of-age novel Pendennis.
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George Brandon, an impoverished gentleman, scorns the family he lodges with, but decides to amuse himself by attempting to seduce the daughters, ultimately setting his sights on the youngest. His casual amusement, however, ends with the very real threat of a duel. Self-delusion, snobbery, and an obsession with money are the underlying themes in this engrossing tale.
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Adopting the persona of an aristocratic London bachelor named George Savage Fitz-Boodle, the English satirist William Makepeace Thackeray wrote these sometimes savage parodies of high society, the institution of marriage, and other aspects of life in his day. They were first printed in Fraser's Magazine, 1842-43, under the title "Confessions of Fitz-Boodle."
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In 1851 the English novelist and satirist William Makepeace Thackeray delivered a series of lectures in London on the great English humorists of the previous century (including Swift, Congreve, Pope, Hogarth, and Fielding), which he repeated over the next two years while touring the United States. The lectures were received with great acclaim and published in book form in 1853.
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A governess must hide her scandalous past as an actress in 1860's Lovel, which Thackeray based on his 1854 play The Wolves and the Lamb. "The most overtly theatrical work we have from one of the 19th century's most theatrical writers."-Anne Layman Horn, Victorian Literature and Culture.
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Serialized from 1848-1850, The History of Pendennis is the coming-of-age story of Arthur Pendennis, a young country-born gentleman who travels to London to make his fortune. There, as Thackeray depicts with his customary satirical flair, he finds work as a journalist and is drawn into the machinations of his scheming uncle, Major Pendennis.
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Catherine: A Story first appeared in serial form in Fraser's magazine published under a pseudonym. The tale of Catherine Hayes, who was burned to death in 1726 for murdering her husband, is Thackeray's attempt to show the folly of investing criminals with romantic heroism, which was common at the time.
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Thackeray's 1852 historical novel recounts the story of the early life of Henry Esmond, a colonel in the service of Queen Anne. Set against the backdrop of English life and the events surrounding the English Restoration-the novel features characters both factual and imagined. Using memoir, Henry tells his tale as the illegitimate son of George, a ranking member of English nobility.
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