Burlesques, from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, Including Juvenilia de William Makepeace Thackeray

Burlesques, from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, Including Juvenilia

William Makepeace Thackeray

en Limba Engleză Paperback – 31 oct 2005

Having examined the wounds in his side, legs, head, and throat, the old hermit (a skilful leech) knelt down by the side of the vanquished one and said, 'Sir Knight, it is my painful duty to state to you that you are in exceedingly dangerous condition, and will not probably survive.' -from "A Legend of the Rhine" Thackeray was one of the most popular writers of fiction of his time, but few readers are familiar with works beyond his 1847 novel Vanity Fair. This omnibus volume collects some of his lesser-known but equally vivid and delightfully caustic writing, including comic short novels sending up chivalrous romances, humorous poetry tweaking popular verse of the era, and a selection of letters and other writings from before his work as a professional man of letters. Complete with whimsical illustrations, some by the author, this is essential reading for lovers of 19th-century British literature. British journalist and novelist WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863) was a regular contributor to some of the most prominent periodicals of his day, including Punch, where his satires of English snobbery attracted public attention and acclaim.

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William Makepeace Thackeray (18 July 1811 - 24 December 1863) was an English novelist of the 19th century. Thackeray achieved recognition with his Snob Papers, but the work that really established his fame was the novel Vanity Fair, which first appeared in serialised instalments beginning in January 1847. Even before Vanity Fair completed its serial run Thackeray had become a celebrity, sought after by the very lords and ladies whom he satirised. They hailed him as the equal of Dickens. 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. During the Victorian era Thackeray was ranked second only to Charles Dickens, but he is now much less widely read and is known almost exclusively for Vanity Fair, which has become a fixture in university courses, and has been repeatedly adapted for the cinema and television.