Showing results by author "William Makepeace" in All Categories

This is an essay from the Favorite Essays collection.

Barry Lyndon, first serialized in 1844, is a swashbuckling romp through the aristocratic Europe of the 18th century. The central character, a roguish Irishman, narrates most of the story in the first person, relating his adventures as a soldier in both the British and Prussian armies; as a gambler and confidence man under the guidance of his uncle, a practiced fraud; and as a fortune hunting gigolo in search of wealthy widows and heiresses.

Vanity Fair (1848), l’opera cui Thackeray deve la fama, è costruito intorno alle storie parallele delle due protagoniste femminili: la spregiudicata Becky Sharp, avventuriera senza scrupoli disposta alla simulazione e al raggiro per crearsi una posizione nel mondo, e la virtuosa quanto...

Napoleon has England on edge. For the cunning and conniving Becky Sharp, it’s an opportunity to take advantage of the chaos and improve her lowly station. Her friend Amelia Sedley, a blue-blood pawn, affords Becky entrée into the moneyed class. As the guileless Amelia pines for a rakish soldier, the ruthless Becky climbs upward, setting the stage for a domestic battlefield of greed, ambition, deception, and dizzying reversals of love and fortune.

Step into the vibrant world of Regency England with Vanity Fair, one of the pinnacle works of Victorian literature. Follow the ambitious and cunning Becky Sharp as she navigates the treacherous waters of social status and wealth, alongside her kind-hearted friend Amelia Sedley. From their days at boarding school to the bustling society of Vanity Fair, this tale reveals the complexities of ambition, friendship, and the pursuit of happiness during the Napoleonic Wars. - Summary by Helen Taylor

Vanity Fair, with its rich cast of characters, takes place on the snakes-and-ladders board of life. Amelia Sedley, daughter of a wealthy merchant, has a loving mother to supervise her courtship. Becky Sharp, an orphan, has to use her wit, charm, and resourcefulness to escape from her destiny as a governess. This she does ruthlessly, musing: "I think I could become a good woman, if I had 5000 pounds a year."

The History of Henry Esmond tells the story of the early life of Henry Esmond, a colonel in the service of Queen Anne of England. A typical example of Victorian historical novels, Thackeray's work of historical fiction tells its tale against the backdrop of late 17th- and early 18th-century England — specifically, major events surrounding the English Restoration — and utilizes characters both real (but dramatized) and imagined.

Thackeray, à travers son personnage domestique, fustige avec ironie la société britannique de son temps, et en particulier l'aristocratie de naissance, classe supérieure souvent trop désargentée pour tenir son rang par des moyens honnêtes, mais toujours adulée par l'homme du peuple. Vanité, cupidité et snobisme sont les causes principales des maux qui s'abattent sur les personnages, lesquels, dans leur dégénérescente confusion, perdent toute conscience des valeurs morales.

A panoramic satire of English society during the Napoleonic Wars, Vanity Fair is William Makepeace Thackeray’s masterpiece. At its center is one of the most unforgettable characters in nineteenth-century literature: the enthralling Becky Sharp, a charmingly ruthless social climber who is...

Ranked second only to Charles Dickens in Victorian era popularity, William Makepeace Thackeray may be a novelist worth rediscoving. This is a great introductory story of the key figure in the brilliant novel Henry Esmond. Classic literature - classic writer - classic story. Narrated by Glenn Hascall.

Set in Regency England, Vanity Fair follows the lives of two young women from drastically different backgrounds. Becky Sharp is the daughter of a lowly art teacher while Amelia Sedley is the daughter of a wealthy investor. Although the two women are worlds apart in personality and background, Becky and Amelia become friends while in finishing school. When Amelia invites Becky to her family home, events are set in motion that result in both tragedy and fortune.

Thackeray veröffentlichte diesen Gesellschaftsroman 1847/1848 in der Satirezeitschrift Punch. Der Autor durchleuchtet sarkastisch...

One of the great Victorian novels by an author at the height of his powers, Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of the calculating, upwardly-mobile Becky Sharp and her gentle, good-hearted friend Amelia Sedley as they leave their boarding school and embark upon their lives in Vanity Fair–the social-climbing, wealth-obsessed world of Regency England in the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

Vanity Fair is a satirical novel of manners which takes place during, and in the decade after, the battle of Waterloo in 1815. The various scenes in the novel range across Europe and England. It was first published in serial form beginning in 1847. The work is by turns witty, scintillating, brutally realistic, tragic, humorous, and always fascinating. The title of the book stems from Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”, where Vanity is a town along the pilgrim’s route, and which holds an eternal fair of the vanities. It is a place where people are ensnared by worldly things.

First published as a serial in Fraser's Magazine in 1844 as The Luck of Barry Lyndon, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq is a picaresque novel, narrated (occasionally charmingly, always unreliably) by a member of the 18th-century Irish gentry. Redmond Barry, later Barry Lyndon, describes his rise to - and inevitable fall from - the top of the English aristocracy. Romantic, military and political intrigue, as well as satire and pathos, follow. Editorial notes, courtesy of Thackeray's fictitious alter ego, G. S. FitzBoodle, interject further levels of irony, humour and detachment.Thackeray, who ...

A classic Victorian novel and a historical novel rolled into one! Read about court and army life during the reign of Queen Anne - a story of Catholic - Protestant intrigue, and the party which aspired to the restoration of Bonny Prince Charlie. And, a good love story as well. (Summary by Karen Merline)

Assembled and edited by Julian Hawthorne and first published in 1907, the Old Time English volume of The Lock and Key Library features ten classic mysteries and ghost stories by Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Robert Maturin, Laurence Sterne, and William Makepeace Thackeray. This volume of The Lock and Key Library is sure to haunt and charm fans of ghost and detective mysteries alike.

Die Figuren, die diesen Jahrmarkt bevölkern, sind die Mitglieder jener Gesellschaft, die im viktorianischen Zeitalter noch ein festumrissener Begriff war. Der Autor leuchtete hinter die Fassade des sich so edel gebärdenden Jahrmarkts und zeigt, dass auch hier "wahre Gentlemen" vielleicht seltener zu finden sind, als mancher denkt. Das Hörspiel, das auf dem Roman "Vanity Fair" (deutscher Titel: "Jahrmarkt der Eitelkeiten") beruht, enthält die fünf Hörspielfolgen.

Un libro satirico dell'umorista Thackeray scritto nel 1838. È una satira della colonizzazione britannica dell'India, narrata come il resoconto delle avventure del maggiore Gahagan, un fanfarone, "alfiere irlandese", che combatte "gloriosamente" con l'armata inglese in India.

Qual è davvero il significato della parola snob, che viene introdotta e illustrata da Thackeray nel 1846? Lui stesso sostiene che il significato non è preciso, ma che di fatto gli snobs sono dappertutto, e sono il veleno della “terra della libertà”, l’Inghilterra.Il “Punch”, giornale satirico dell’epoca, pubblicò 17 articoli di Thackeray sul tema, e la loro raccolta formò poi questo libro divertente, acuto, e appassionato.