William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was born on July 18, 1811 in Calcutta, India to Richmond Thackeray and Anne Becher Thackeray. Thackeray was sent to school in England in 1817 two years after his father died. Soon after Thackeray had left, his mother and her new husband joined him in England.
In school Thackeray spent most of his time reading novels and sketching, hobbies that stayed with him through out his life. He later attended Cambridge where he never took a degree in anything. He had many gambling debts to pay and no money to pay them. His mother and his stepfather had lost most of their money in India and could not help. Thackeray by then had begun to fall for a woman named Isabella Shawe. He however did not have the money he needed to marry her. His parents then started a newspaper called The Constitution to raise money for Thackeray to marry.
English: First edition title page of Vanity Fair
Thackeray
English: Presumably William Makepeace Thackeray. W...He did so on August 8, 1836 and worked for the newspaper to maintain a steady income.
After the birth of his first child in June of 1837, The Constitution collapsed.
This motivated Thackeray to write countless articles and send them to numerous newspapers and magazines. Some of the newspapers magazines that published his articles were: The Times, The Morning Chronicle, Fraser's Magazine and Punch Magazine. At this point in his writing career he was mostly a humorous writer. While Thackeray continued to write for Punch Magazine, in 1844 he began to write novels, which he is mostly known for.
Although Thackeray started writing novels in 1844 his most famous novel, Vanity Fair was written in 1847. The publication of this novel was the turning point in his career. This novel distinguishes true gentlemen and those who are base on externalism. Some...