Books with author William Thackeray

With an Introduction and Notes by Owen Knowles, University of Hull Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven by acquisitive greed and soulless materialism, in which the narrator himself plays a brilliantly versatile role as a serio-comic observer. Although subtitled 'A Novel without a Hero', Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two contrasting but inter-linked lives: through the retiring Amelia Sedley and the brilliant Becky Sharp, Thackeray examines the position of women in an intensely exploitative male world.

**Fully illustrated with Thackeray's original pen and ink illustrations. Includes link to the free audiobook!Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray that satirizes society in early 19th-century England. Like many novels of the time, Vanity Fair was published as a serial before being sold in book form; it was printed in 20 monthly parts between January 1847 and July 1848.Thackeray meant the book to be not only entertaining but also instructive; this is shown both by the narrator of the book and in Thackeray's private correspondence. The novel is now remembered as a classic of English literature, though some critics claim that it has structural problems; Thackeray sometimes lost track of the huge scope of his work, mixing up characters' names and minor plot details. The number of allusions and references it contains can make it difficult for modern readers to follow.It's interesting to note that Vanity Fair was one of the first examples of what's called the "multi-plot" novel, which became hugely popular between the late 1840s and the mid 1870s. This is a type of novel in which two or more entirely separate groups of characters have their stories told, with the author eventually bringing everything together to form a conclusion in which everyone "participates".

After Garryn returns to claim the throne of his homeworld, he's plagued by dreams of a mysterious star system with a yellow sun.Consulting a mentalist for help, Garryn learns that he is not the only one with the same dreams, and sets on a quest to understand his visions.Soon, the truth behind the dreams reveals a secret that changes Garryn's life, and shakes the Empire to its foundations.Praise:★★★★★ - "I literally could not put this book down until I finished it. If you like space operas, you'll love this book."★★★★★ - "My favorite thing about this book is the world building. The story takes place in a futuristic society, yet it's more like opulent Victorian England."★★★★★ - "I thoroughly enjoyed this. Fast paced, easy to fall into. I'll look for more books by Linda Thackeray."

Vanity Fair is an English novel by William Makepeace Thackeray which follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848, carrying the subtitle Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Life, reflecting both its satirisation of early 19th-century British society and the many illustrations drawn by Thackeray to accompany the text. It was published as a single volume in 1848 with the subtitle A Novel without a Hero, reflecting Thackeray's interest in deconstructing his era's conventions regarding literary heroism. It is sometimes considered the "principal founder" of the Victorian domestic novel.The story is framed as a puppet play and the narrator, despite being an authorial voice, is notoriously unreliable. Late in the narrative, it is revealed that the entire account has been 2nd- or 3rd-hand gossip the writer picked up "years ago" from Lord Tapeworm, British charge d'affaires in one of the minor German states and relative of several of the other aristocrats in the story but none of the main characters: "the famous little Becky puppet", "the Amelia Doll", "the Dobbin Figure", "the Little Boys", and "the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared".[3] Despite her many stated faults and still worse ones admitted to have been passed over in silence, Becky emerges as the "hero"—what is now called an antihero—in place of Amelia because Thackeray is able to illustrate that "the highest virtue a fictional character can possess is interest."

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).[1] 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, as "A Fireside Pantomime". The original edition had illustrations by Thackeray who had once intended a career as an illustrator.The plot opens on the royal family of Paflagonia eating breakfast together: King Valoroso, his wife, the Queen, and their daughter, Princess Angelica. Through the course of the meal it is discovered that Prince Bulbo, heir to the neighbouring kingdom of Crim Tartary, and son of King Padella is coming to visit Paflagonia. It is also discovered, after the two women have left the table, that King Valoroso stole his crown, and all his wealth, from his nephew, Prince Giglio, when the prince was an infant.Prince Giglio and Princess Angelica have been brought up together very closely, Princess Angelica being considered the most beautiful and wisest girl in the kingdom and Giglio being much overlooked in the household. Giglio, besotted with his cousin, has given her a ring belonging to his mother, which, unknown to them, was given to her by the Fairy Blackstick and which held the power to make the wearer beautiful to everyone who beheld them. After an argument with Giglio, about the arrival of the long-awaited Prince Bulbo, Angelica throws the ring out of the window and can be seen for her own, less attractive self.Prince Bulbo, in his turn, possesses a magic rose, with the same power as the ring and coming from the same source: the Fairy Blackstick. Upon his arrival, this causes Angelica to be madly in love with him.Angelica's governess, Countess Gruffanuff, finds the magic ring in the garden and, whilst wearing it, convinces Giglio to sign a paper swearing to marry her. She then gives the ring to Angelica's maid, Betsinda, an orphan discovered by the family with a torn cloak in her possession. The maid, however, is actually Rosalba, the only child of the true king of Crim Tartary. When Betsinda wears the ring to take the warming pan around the bedrooms, Princes Bulbo and Giglio immediately fall in love with her, along with King Valoroso. This excites the rage of The Queen, Angelica and Gruffanuff, and causes Betsinda to be driven from the house.In response to Giglio's rudeness, Valoroso orders him to be executed, but his Captain of the Guards, Count Kutasoff Hedzoff, takes Bulbo to the scaffold instead, where he is reprieved at the last moment by Angelica, who takes his rose, returns to her former beauty and marries him.