Sadly, Thackeray is seldom read nowadays. Except for 'Vanity Fair', he is mostly unknown and yet many of his contemporaries rated him as highly as Dickens. This comprehensive eBook aims to reveal the true genius of this master storyteller, featuring the complete works, with beautiful illustrations and special bonus texts. (Version 4)

* illustrated with hundreds of images, relating to Thackeray’s life and works
* annotated with concise introductions to the novels and other texts
* images of how the monthly serials first appeared, giving your eReader a taste of the original Victorian texts
* ALL 12 novels, many with their original illustrations
* even includes the rare unfinished novel ‘A Shabby Genteel Story’
* also includes the rare novels ‘Lovel the Widower’, ‘Adventures of Philip’ and the unfinished novel ‘Denis Duval’
* ALL of the short stories and novellas, with excellent formatting
* even INCLUDES Thackeray’s poetry, essays and Punch articles
* ALL of the travel writing and sketches, with many illustrations
* includes Trollope’s biography of Thackeray
* scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres
* master table of contents to allow easy navigation around Thackeray’s immense oeuvre.
* includes Thackeray’s Collected Letters from 1847-1855

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CONTENTS

The Novels
CATHERINE
A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY
THE LUCK OF BARRY LYNDON
VANITY FAIR
THE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS
MEN’S WIVES
THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, ESQ.
THE NEWCOMES
THE VIRGINIANS
THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
LOVEL THE WIDOWER
DENIS DUVAL

The Shorter Fiction
ELIZABETH BROWNRIGGE
SULTAN STORK
LITTLE SPITZ
THE PROFESSOR
MISS LÖWE
THE YELLOWPLUSH PAPERS
THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN
THE FATAL BOOTS
COX’S DIARY
THE BEDFORD-ROW CONSPIRACY
THE HISTORY OF SAMUEL TITMARSH AND THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND
THE FITZ-BOODLE PAPERS
THE DIARY OF C. JEAMES DE LA PLUCHE, ESQ. WITH HIS LETTERS
A LEGEND OF THE RHINE
A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS’S
REBECCA AND ROWENA
BLUEBEARD’S GHOST

The Christmas Books
MRS. PERKINS’S BALL
OUR STREET
DOCTOR BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS
THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE
THE ROSE AND THE RING

The Sketches and Satires
CONTRIBUTIONS TO “THE SNOB”
FLORE ET ZEPHYR
THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK
THE BOOK OF SNOBS
ROUNDABOUT PAPERS
SOME ROUNDABOUT PAPERS
DICKENS IN FRANCE
CHARACTER SKETCHES
SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON
MR. BROWN’S LETTERS
THE PROSER
MISCELLANIES

The Play
THE WOLVES AND THE LAMB

The Poetry
LIST OF THE COMPLETE POETRY

The Travel Writing
NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO
THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK
LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES

The Non-Fiction
NOVELS BY EMINENT HANDS
THE HISTORY OF THE NEXT FRENCH REVOLUTION
THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
JOHN LEECH’S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER
THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
THE FOUR GEORGES
CRITICAL REVIEWS
A LECTURE ON “CHARITY AND HUMOUR”
VARIOUS ESSAYS, LETTERS, SKETCHES, ETC.
THE HISTORY OF DIONYSIUS DIDDLER.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO PUNCH
MISS TICKLETOBY’S LECTURES ON ENGLISH HISTORY
PAPERS BY THE FAT CONTRIBUTOR
MISCELLANEOUS CONTRIBUTIONS TO “PUNCH”
“SPEC” AND “PROSER” PAPERS
A PLAN FOR A PRIZE NOVEL

The Letters
A COLLECTION OF LETTERS 1847-1855

The Biography
THACKERAY BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE

In Memoriam W. M. Thackeray by Charles Dickens

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HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

‘Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts...’

Self-serving social climber and anti-heroine Becky Sharp will do anything to raise her status and attain wealth and standing with smart Society. Clever, lively and resourceful, orphan Becky is the the total opposite of her naive and sentimental schoolmate Amelia Sedley, a pampered, yet good-natured girl from a wealthy family. As both women build lives for themselves in London, Thackeray decadently satirises the corruption and flaws of 19th-Century English Society.

"I do not say there is no character as well drawn in Shakespeare [as D'Artagnan]. I do say there is none that I love so wholly."
--Robert Louis Stevenson

"The lasting and universal popularity of The Three Musketeers shows that Dumas, by artlessly expressing his own nature in the persons of his heroes, was responding to that craving for action, strength and generosity which is a fact in all periods and all places."
--Andreé Maurois

On a broad and colourful canvas, extending from urban and rural England to Waterloo and the continental haunts of exiles, Thackeray gives us one of the greatest social-satirical novels in the language-one of the most entertaining and profound, and, in the person of Becky Sharp, we have one of literature's most resourceful, attractive, and amoral characters. Essentially a commentary on hypocrisy and those ethical principles to which society pays lip-service, Vanity Fair (1847-8) invites us to consider which is to blame: the opportunist or the society that makes opportunism necessary. This edition, which reproduces the text of the Oxford Thackeray enhanced by John Sutherland's lively introduction and notes, includes all of Thackeray's own illustrations. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A marvelous, incisive social satire that gleefully exposes the greed and corruption raging in England during the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars through its tracing of the changing fortunes of two unforgettable women. It is a comic masterpiece that still resonates today.

"Re-reading Vanity Fair, one realises what a brilliant innovation this was in the English novel," remarked V. S. Pritchett. "Thackeray is like the modern novelists who derive from James and Proust, in his power of dissecting (and of desiccating!) character."

Generally considered to be his masterpiece, Vanity Fair is Thackeray's resplendent social satire that exposes the greed and corruption raging in England during the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars. Subtitled "A Novel Without a Hero," it traces the changing fortunes of two unforgettable women: the scheming opportunist Becky Sharp—one of literature's most resourceful, engaging, and amoral heroines—and her foil, the faithful, naive Amelia Sedley. Thackeray's subversive, comic attack on the hypocrisy and "dismal roguery" of an avaricious world resonates 150 years later with implications for our own times.

"Thackeray is an urbane nineteenth-century guide and commentator in a portrait gallery that is for all time," observed Louis Auchincloss. "He is the restless inhabitant of a prudish age, nostalgic, discursive, anecdotal, sentimental, worldly-wise, now warning us, now making fun of us, now reproving us .... Thackeray's harshest criticism of humanity is simply the point where ours commences. His perception of self-interest in every act is the ABC of modem psychology."

The Rose and The Ring is a satirical work of fantasy fiction written by William Makepeace Thackeray, originally published at Christmas 1854 (though dated 1855). It criticises, to some extent, the attitudes of the monarchy and those at the top of society and challenges their ideals of beauty and marriage.

Set in the fictional countries of Paflagonia and Crim Tartary, the story revolves around the lives and fortunes of four young royal cousins, Princesses Angelica and Rosalba, and Princes Bulbo and Giglio. Each page is headed by a line of poetry summing up the plot at that point and the storyline as a whole is laid out, as the book states,

During their lifetimes, Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray were engaged in a friendly competition of sorts to see who could gain the most stature and popularity as writers for the masses. Following in Dickens' footsteps, Thackeray began penning a series of heartwarming holiday-themed tales to be published in serial form, often under the pen name "Michael Angelo Titmarsh." Many of the most beloved tales from this series are collected in this volume.

Even before the last part of the serial was published, critics hailed the work as a literary treasure. Although the critics were superlative in their praise, they expressed disappointment at the unremittingly dark portrayal of human nature, fearing Thackeray had taken his dismal metaphor too far. In response to his critics, Thackeray explained that he saw people for the most part "abominably foolish and selfish". The unhappy ending was intended to inspire readers to look inward at their own shortcomings.

It tells the story of Henry Esmond's twin grandsons, George and Henry Warrington. Henry's romantic entanglements with an older woman lead up to his taking a commission in the British army and fighting under the command of General Wolfe at the capture of Quebec. On the outbreak of the American War of Independence he takes the revolutionary side. George, who is also a British officer, thereupon resigns his commission rather than take up arms against his brother.

The author of Vanity Fair focuses his attention on the American Revolutionary War in the sprawling epic The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century. The novel follows the trials and tribulations of twin brothers George and Harry Warrington whose personal lives intrude on their decision to fight in the war effort.

Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is a novel by English author William Makepeace Thackeray. The subtitle, A Novel without a Hero, is apt because the characters are all flawed to a greater or lesser degree; even the most sympathetic have weaknesses, for example Captain Dobbin, who is prone to vanity and melancholy. The human weaknesses Thackeray illustrates are mostly to do with greed, idleness, and snobbery, and the scheming, deceit and hypocrisy which mask them. None of the characters are wholly evil, although Becky's psychopathic tendencies make her come pretty close. However, even Becky, who is amoral and cunning, is thrown on her own resources by poverty and its stigma. (She is the orphaned daughter of a poor artist and an opera dancer.) Thackeray's tendency to highlight faults in all of his characters displays his desire for a greater level of realism in his fiction compared to the rather unlikely or idealized people in many contemporary novels. The novel is a satire of society as a whole, characterized by hypocrisy and opportunism, but it is not a reforming novel; there is no suggestion that social or political changes, or greater piety and moral reformism could improve the nature of society. It thus paints a fairly bleak view of the human condition. This bleak portrait is continued with Thackeray's own role as an omniscient narrator, one of the writers best known for using the technique. He continually offers asides about his characters and compares them to actors and puppets, but his scorn goes even as far as his readers; accusing all who may be interested in such "Vanity Fairs" as being either "of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood".

As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head and heels, and crying, "How are you?"