Profile of William Makepeace Thackeray on Famous Like Me

William Makepeace Thackeray (July 18, 1811 – December 24, 1863) was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a portrait of middle-class English society.

He was born in Calcutta, India, where his father worked for the British East India Company. In 1817 his family returned to England, where he was educated at the Charterhouse School and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Thackeray was prolific and wrote under a number of amusing pseudonyms: "Charles James Yellowplush, a footman"; "Michael Angelo Titmarsh"; and "George Savage Fitz-Boodle". In addition, he worked as a journalist, traveling widely and meeting many celebrities of his time, including Goethe. Charlotte Brontë was one of his admirers and dedicated to him the second edition of Jane Eyre.

Thackeray's connection with Royal Tunbridge Wells is of special interest and value from the fact that The Wells figures largely in his novel "The Virginians"; and in the "Roundabout Papers", one of his sketches, entitled "Tonbridge Toys," describes his visits here and his early and later impressions of the place. The house, 'Rock Villa,' at which he stayed in 1860 still stands and preserves its original features. It bears a plaque denoting his visit there and is known as Thackeray's house, with a brass plate to that effect on its gatepost. His first visit as a boy was in 1823, when he travelled there by coach from London, arriving at a small house on the Common where his parents were staying for a time. When he paid his final visit to The Wells in 1860, he was accompanied by his daughter, Lady Ritchie. He was then Editor of The Cornhill Magazine and wrote "Tonbridge Toys" and "de Gwentive" at Rock Villa. It has also been stated that a part, if not all, of "The Virginians" was written here.

Novels

• A Shabby Genteel Story (1840)
• The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. (1844), filmed as Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick
• The Book of Snobs (1846), which popularized that term
• On Being Found Out
• Vanity Fair (1848), featuring the terrifying Becky Sharp
• Pendennis (1849)
• Rebecca and Rowena (1850), a parody sequel of Ivanhoe
• The Wolves and the Lamb
• The History of Henry Esmond
• The Newcomes (1855)
• The Virginians (1857-1859)

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