Catherine: A Story - Couverture souple

Thackeray, William Makepeace

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1421811987 ISBN 13 : 9781421811987

Editeur : 1st World Library - Literary Society, 2005

Synopsis

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - At that famous period of history, when the seventeenth century (after a deal of quarrelling, king-killing, reforming, republicanising, restoring, re-restoring, play-writing, sermon- writing, Oliver-Cromwellising, Stuartising, and Orangising, to be sure) had sunk into its grave, giving place to the lusty eighteenth; when Mr. Isaac Newton was a tutor of Trinity, and Mr. Joseph Addison Commissioner of Appeals; when the presiding genius that watched over the destinies of the French nation had played out all the best cards in his hand, and his adversaries began to pour in their trumps; when there were two kings in Spain employed perpetually in running away from one another; when there was a queen in England, with such rogues for Ministers as have never been seen, no, not in our own day; and a General, of whom it may be severely argued, whether he was the meanest miser or the greatest hero in the world; when Mrs. Masham had not yet put Madam Marl-borough's nose out of joint; when people had their ears cut off for writing very meek political pamphlets; and very large full-bottomed wigs were just beginning to be worn with powder; and the face of Louis the Great, as his was handed in to him behind the bed-curtains, was, when issuing thence, observed to look longer, older, and more dismal daily. . . .

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Catherine: A Story was the first full-length work of fiction produced by William Makepeace Thackeray. It first appeared in serialized installments in Fraser's Magazine between May 1839 and February 1840. Thackeray's original intention in writing it was to criticize the Newgate school of crime fiction, exemplified by Bulwer-Lytton and Harrison Ainsworth, whose works Thackeray felt glorified criminals.Thackeray, an only child, was born in Calcutta, India, where his father, Richmond Thackeray (1 September 1781 – 13 September 1815), held the high rank of secretary to the board of revenue in the British East India Company. His mother, Anne Becher (1792–1864; second daughter of John Harman Becher, a writer for the East India Company, and his wife Harriet), married Richmond Thackeray on 13 October 1810 after being sent to India in 1809. She was sent abroad after being told that the man she loved, Henry Carmichael-Smyth, had died. This was not true, but her family wanted a better marriage for her than with Carmichael-Smyth, a military man. The truth was unexpectedly revealed in 1812, when Richmond Thackeray unwittingly invited to dinner the supposedly dead Carmichael-Smyth. Richmond Thackeray, born at South Mimms, went to India at the age of sixteen to assume his duties as writer. By 1804 he had fathered a daughter by a native mistress, the mother and daughter being named in his will. Such liaisons being common among gentlemen of the East India Company, it formed no bar to his courting and marrying Anne Becher. After Richmond's death, Henry Carmichael-Smyth married Anne in 1818 and they returned to England the next year.

Biographie de l'auteur

William Makepeace Thackeray was born in 1811 in Calcutta of Anglo-Indian parents. He was educated at English private schools and Cambridge but left without a degree. European travel was cut short by the loss of most of Thackeray's inheritance in 1833 in Indian bank failures, upon which he decided to make his living as a painter. Returning to London in 1837, he found himself with two young daughters and an insane wife by 1840 and forced to write for a living. Most of his early output was reviews, sketches, comic items or short serials for magazines, often under pseudonyms. His first novel, Barry London, was serialised in 1844, and Thackeray also published three travel books in the 1840s. His satiric vein and discontent with contemporary fictional norms led to his first major novel, Vanity Fair, in 1847, followed by a handful of other major novels over the next dozen years which turned from satiric to historical. Published lectures on the new field of English literature led to tours of the United States from 1852 and The Virginians, a novel set partly in America. Thackeray was a founding editor of the literary journal The Cornhill Magazine in 1859, but resigned due to ill-health in 1862, though his last works were published in the journal. He died in 1863.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: 1st World Library - Literary Society
• Date d'édition: 2005
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1421811987
• ISBN 13: 9781421811987
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 220
• Éditeur: 1st World Library, 1stworld Library
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Allemagne