Vanity Fair [antikvár]

THE LIFE OF WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 1811-1863 William Makepeace Thackeray was born in 1811, four years before the battle of Waterloo. As a small boy he lived in India, but returned to England to be educated at Charterhouse, where he was not very happy. He went on to Cambridge where he became a friend of Tennyson, but left the University without taking a degree. He had inherited a large fortune from his father, and was inclined to be extravagant and irresponsible. From Cambridge he went to Germany to study, and returning to England he became a law student. Once more he seemed unable to setde to his studies, and after a year he went to Paris to study art. At the age of twenty-five he married Isabella Shaw, the daughter of an Irish family resident in Paris, but after four years she became insane and he was left with his three little daughters. All his money was now gone, so he had to settle in London to earn his living. He had hoped to be a painter, but it was as a writer that he found success. He began work as a journalist, writing humorous sketches and satires for magazines, and used the pseudonyms 'J. P. Yellowplush' and 'Michael Angelo Tit-marsh'. He attempted several novels, but it was some time before his work received serious recognition, and it was not until the publication of Vanity Fair in 1848 that his fame was established. Vanity Fair is unquestionably his masterpiece. Thackeray shows a number of characters making their way through the harsh world of pomp and circumstance. None is wholly good or wholly bad, but all in some way are deluded and deceived. Two characters are shown in sharp contrast: Amelia is gentle and unselfish, but foolish and emotionally confused; Becky Sharp is