Other editions of book The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.

"Barry Lyndon" is the fictional autobiography of an adventurer and rogue. Born into the petty Irish gentry, and outmaneuvered in his first love affair, a ruined Barry volunteers for the British army. After seeing service in Germany he deserts and pursues the career of a gambler in the dissolute clubs and courts of Europe. In a determined effort to enter fashionable society, he marries a titled heiress but only to find himself easily outwitted.

First published in 1844, this is Thackeray's earliest substantial work of fiction and perhaps his most original. The text is that of Saintbury's 1908 Oxford edition which incorporates Thackeray's revisions.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum 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, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Historical novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in Fraser's Magazine in 1844 as The Luck of Barry Lyndon: A Romance of the Last Century. The book was published in two volumes in 1852-53, and it was revised ("with admissions") as The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. in 1856. The novel concerns the life and times of the title character and narrator, a roguish Irishman. The fast-flowing satirical narrative reveals a man dedicated to success and good fortune. Born Redmond Barry, he leaves his homeland after shooting a man in a duel. He becomes a soldier of fortune and later works as a professional gambler. Remade as a man of fashion, he courts a wealthy widow, marries her, and assumes her aristocratic name of Lyndon. He mistreats both her and her son and spends and gambles away her money, but eventually she extricates herself from the alliance. By the novel's end he is in jail, cared for by his mother. -- The Merriam-Webster Encylopedia of Literature

Barry Lyndon—far from the best known, but by some critics acclaimed as the finest, of Thackeray's works—appeared originally as a serial a few years before VANITY FAIR was written; yet it was not published in book form, and then not by itself, until after the publication of VANITY FAIR, PENDENNIS, ESMOND and THE NEWCOMES had placed its author in the forefront of the literary men of the day. So many years after the event we cannot help wondering why the story was not earlier put in book form; for in its delineation of the character of an adventurer it is as great as VANITY FAIR, while for the local colour of history, if I may put it so, it is no undistinguished precursor of ESMOND.

BARRY LYNDON was to be hailed by competent critics as one of Thackeray's finest performances, though the author himself seems to have had no strong regard for the story. His daughter has recorded, "My father once said to me when I was a girl: 'You needn't read Barry Lyndon, you won't like it.' Indeed, it is scarcely a book to like, but one to admire and to wonder at for its consummate power and mastery." Mr. Leslie Stephen says: "All later critics have recognized in this book one of his most powerful performances. In directness and vigor he never surpassed it."

The Luck of Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in serial form in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy. Thackeray, who based the novel on the life and exploits of the Anglo-Irish rakehell and fortune-hunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, later reissued it under the title The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq..