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Thackeray<-novels<-chapter 7<-contents<-position

2.William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)
Life
    Thackeray, as one of the chief representatives of English critical realism, was born in Calcutta, India, where his father served as a collector in the East India Company. At five years old, his father died and Thackeray inherited a large amount of money. One year later, he was sent to England to receive aristocratic education. Although he entered Cambridge, he left the university without a degree. Then he traveled in Germany, France and Italy. In 1831 he entered the Middle Temple to study law but soon abandoned it. In 1833, Thackeray purchased and edited a weekly the National Standard that failed a year later.
     At the age of 22, he lost his fortune inherited from his father because of the bankruptcy of the Indian bank where he had deposited his money. Thackeray had to earn his own living from then on. He drew humorous and satirical sketches and wrote articles for magazines and newspapers. Until he published Vanity Fair in 1848, his position as a great novelist was established. He also wrote some novels afterwards, such as Pendennis (1848-1850), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), The Newcomers (1853-1855) and The Virginians (185-1859), etc. However, these works are not as significant as Vanity Fair.
    Although he spent his childhood and youth in comfort, his later years were full of hardships; especially his wife’s insanity and debts put upon him terribly changed his life. He gradually became skeptimistic and pessimistic.
     Just like Dickens, Thackeray died and left his unfinished novel Deniv Duval in 1863.

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