William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray ( born July 18, 1811 in Calcutta, † December 24, 1863 in London) was an English writer and is next to Charles Dickens and George Eliot as the most important English-language novelist of the Victorian era.
Life
Thackeray was born the son of a colonial officials in India. 1815 his father died. Thackeray was sent in 1817 to go to school to boarding schools in England. So he learned in the Charterhouse School know the English school system, which he vividly in the Christmas narrative Doctor Birch and his young friends, and in several of his major works described later. 1829/30 he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, but left it without qualifications and went to London. The following year he took a trip to the European continent, visiting France and Italy, in addition to Germany, where he met, among others, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Weimar. 1831/32 he studied law in London. In 1833, he lost his inherited wealth and went to Paris to study art. In 1836 he married in Paris the Irish Isabella Shawe. The marriage produced three daughters were born, including Anne Thackeray Ritchie, the writer was himself.
In the same year Thackeray's first article in the reasoned by his stepfather newspaper "The Constitutional ", a sheet of liberal attitude, which, however, went down again after a year appeared. In 1837 he returned to London and began to work as a journalist. In 1840 he published his first book in England. Thackeray's wife suffered this year a nervous breakdown and ended up in a mental hospital. In 1844 he undertook a journey to the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The publication of his literary masterpiece Vanity Fair ( German: Vanity Fair ) 1847/48 made him finally become a respected author and also provided him with material prosperity. His high social prestige was reflected in his membership in four of the UK's best clubs in saying at the Athenaeum, the Travellers, the Garrick and the Reform Club.
Works
- Memoirs of Mr. CJ Yellowplush, (The Yellowplush Correspondence ) Roman 1837/38
- The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon Junkers, Roman 1844 ( presentation of the film Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick )
- Vanity Fair, Roman 1847/48 (2004 filmed, see Vanity Fair (2004) ).
- The Snobs, prose sketches 1849 Reprint: The Book of Snobs, Manesseplatz Verlag, Zurich 2011 ISBN 978-3-7175-2332-1