William Makepeace Thackeray

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.

The popular novelist and humorist gave a series of lectures on the Hanoverian monarchs. The Four Georges (1859) collects his talks on the first four of these monarchs, which were heard on his tours of the United States in 1852-53 and 1855-56.

Roundabout Papers is a rich collection of columns that Thackerary wrote for Cornhill Magazine, a Victorian periodical and literary journal, and showcases his range of interests, thoughtful musings, and literary skills. Includes: "On a Lazy Idle Boy," "Thorns in the Cushion," "On a Joke I Once Heard from the Late Thomas Hood," "A Mississippi Bubble," and many more.

A comedy in two acts, The Wolves and the Lamb tells the story of Horace Milliken, a wealthy widower and merchant, his family, and Miss Prior, his children's governess. Thackeray approaches his characters with a thoughtfulness and keen eye for detail that permeates much of his writing, and brings this story to life.

Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published as a serial in Fraser's Magazine in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy. Thackeray, who based the novel on the life and exploits of the Anglo-Irish rake and fortune-hunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, later reissued it under the title The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. The novel is narrated by Lyndon himself, who functions...

Chronicles the exploits of Becky Sharp, an unscrupulous young woman who is determined to achieve wealth and social success.