Who was William Makepeace Thackeray?
Novelist and Satirist.
Date and Place of Birth:
18th July 1811, Calcutta, India.
Family Background:
Only child of Richmond and Anne Thackeray. His
father was an official in the British East India Company and died
when he was only four years old.
Education:
Schools in Southampton and Chiswick. Charterhouse,
London. Trinity College, Cambridge.
Chronology/Biography of William
Makepeace Thackeray:
1815:
Death of his father.
1816: Sent home
to England to be educated leaving his mother behind in India to
marry her childhood sweetheart. He stopped at St. Helena on the
way and a servant pointed out the prisoner Napoleon.
1829: Entered Cambridge
University after attending various schools although he was not an
especially good scholar. Drinking, gambling and many trips to the
continent meant that he neglected his studies and he left without
a degree in 1830. The most important thing he got out of Cambridge
was a friendship with Edward Fitzgerald.
1831: Thackeray
traveled to the Continent and spent the winter at Weimar where he
was introduced to Goethe. He studied the language and began to gain
an interest in Romantic literature.
1832: On his return
to England Thackeray lived the life of a gentleman, gambling and
drinking in taverns once more.
1833: He tried briefly
to study law at Middle Temple of the Inns of Court. Not suited to
this however he invested some of his father's inheritance in a weekly
paper, The National Standard, which he took over as editor and owner.
Though the paper went bankrupt almost straight away but it did introduce
him to London journalism. As if this wasn't bad enough his stepfather's
estate was lost due to the collapse of an Indian bank.
1834: He tried to
become an artist in London and Paris in 1835. Met his future wife
Isabella Shawe in Paris.
1836: Forced to
earn his living he now began to work for periodicals and newspapers
such as Fraser's Magazine, The Morning Chronicle, The Times and,
most successfully, Punch. Tried to live in Paris for a while after
his marriage but eventually returned to London the following year
due to lack of funds.
1837: Thackeray
worked quite often as a critic under a range of pseudonyms and also
produced work such as The Yellowplush Papers.
1839: Published
Catherine in Fraser's Magazine.
1840: He made some
money from writing travel books. The Paris Sketch Book sold enough
to cover his costs.
1843: He sold The
Irish Sketch Book to Chapman and Hall, the publishers of Dickens
and Carlyle.
1846: He gained
notoriety when he first published The Snobs of England in Punch.
Isabella his wife now began to get depressed and tried to commit
suicide by jumping into the sea. Thackeray then Isabella to various
spas and sanatoriums, and underwent a "water cure" with
her, since she wouldn't go alone. She then went to a variety of
asylums in France and he had to bring up his children with the help
of his mother.
1847: He had a major
success with Vanity Fair. The novel was slow to take off and the
first chapters were rejected by several publishers, however it eventually
sold 7,000 copies a month and it was popular and reviewed widely.
1849: The novel
Pendennis was the next to be serialised but it was interrupted due
to a severe illness which may have been cholera. This novel ran
at the same time as David Copperfield, and this brought about comparisons
with Dickens.
1851: He delivered
a series of lectures, English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century,
which he repeated in a tour of the United States in the following
year.
1852: The History
of Henry Esmond was published as a 3-volume novel without first
being serialised and for it he had to do a considerable amount of
historical research. The book was celebrated for its brilliance.
During these years, Thackeray lived virtually as a bachelor, even
though now he had his daughters and grandmother with him. He spent
time with friends, staff dinners for Punch magazine and attending
social functions of fashionable society. His constant companion
was Jane Brookfield, the wife of an old friend from Cambridge although
this was mainly a platonic relationship despite Jane's hatred of
her cold hearted husband. Thackeray then went away on a lecture
tour of America.
1853: First publication
of The Newcomes. After a second profitable lecturing tour around
Britain on The Four Georges (Hanoverian Kings), Thackeray stood
for Parliament as an independent but was defeated when a well-known
politician was substituted for the other candidate.
1855: Second tour
of the United States.
1857: Published
The Virginians, a novel set during the American Revolution.
1860: Thackeray
accepted the editorship of a new magazine published by George Smith
called The Cornhill. It began with a record circulation and a number
of distinguished authors, many of whom were persuaded to contribute
because of Thackeray's name. He made enough money at this time to
build a large house for himself in Kensington.
1862: Resigned as
Editor the Cornhill as he preferred writing to editing. His last
novels appeared in The Cornhill Magazine. Thackeray’s eldest daughter,
Anne, Lady Ritchie, was also an author and his youngest daughter
Harriet married Sir Leslie Stephen father of Virginia Woolf.
Written Works:
- 1837:
“The Professor”.
- 1838:
“The Yellowplush Papers”.
- 1839:
“Catherine”.
- 1840:
“Sketches”. “An Essay on the Genius of George Cruickshank”. “A
Paris Sketchbook”.
- 1841:
“Comic Tales and Sketches”. “The Great Hoggarty Diamond”. “The
History of Samuel Titmarsh”.
- 1842:
“The Fitzboodle Papers”.
- 1843:
“Bluebeard's Ghost.”.
- 1844:
“The History of the Next French Revolution”.
- 1845:
“The Diary of Jeannes de la Pluche”. “Legend of the Rhine”.
- 1846:
”Cornhill to Cairo”.
- 1848:
“Our Street”. “Vanity Fair”.
- 1849:
“Dr Brick and his Young Friends”. “The History of Pendennis”.
- 1850:
“The Kickleburys on the Rhine”. “Rebecca and Rowena”.
- 1852:
“The Book of Snob”. T”he History of Henry Esmond”. “The Luck of
Barry Lyndon”.
- 1853:
“The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century”.
- 1854:
“The Newcomes”.
- 1858:
“The Virginians”.
- 1861:
“The Four Georges”. “Lovel the Widower”.
- 1862:
“The Adventures of Phillip”.
- 1863:
“Roundabout Papers”.
- (1867):
“Denis Duval”.
- (1876):
“The Orphans of Pimlico”.
Marriage:
20th August 1836 to Isabella Shawe.
Places of Interest:
AVON:
Stayed at No 17 The Circus in 1857 whilst giving
his lectures on the Four Georges.
DERBYSHIRE:
Visited Chatsworth House on tour.
LONDON:
Literary salons at Jane Brookfield's House, Great
Pulteney Street.
SOMERSET:
Visited Clevedon Court (National Trust) on tour.
Date and Place of Death:
24th December 1863, London, England after a bursting
of a blood vessel in his brain.
Age at Death:
52.
Site of Grave:
Kensal Green Cemetery, Kensal Green, London,
England.
