Thackeray - Hardcover

Taylor, D J

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0701162317 ISBN 13: 9780701162313

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 1999

Synopsis

VANITY FAIR, published 1847-8, made William Makepeace Thackeray famous - all but the top of the tree, he told his mother, and having a great fight up there with Dickens, if truth be known. Behind him lay an extraordinary life - an intense, Anglo Indian childhood, dominated by the figure of his mother; a fortune lsot by his early twenties: a disastrous marriage to a wife who went mad and left him to bring up their two small daughters in near penury. (1999-09-27)

About this title

Review:

It could be argued that the best biographies are written by novelists: Ackroyd's Dickens would be the classic example. Taylor is a deft if underrated novelist (his Trespass is particularly absorbing), who has also written a number of good critical studies of the contemporary novel. Tackling a topic as major as Thackeray is a bold move and one that takes him out of his usual arena. But he pulls it off with spectacular aplomb; it is hard to see how this could have been done better.

Everything about this book is just right: from the Thackerayan illustrated initial letters that decorate each chapter opening, to the fluid intelligent tone, and the broad grasp of subject. Taylor points out that, from a biographer's point of view, Thackeray presents an "elusive, or even protean" character; a function of the vigorous compartmentalisation that he undertook in his life.

However, Taylor provides a convincing a sense of him. His wife confined to an insane asylum, he fell in love with Jane Brookfield, the wife of a friend; a passion which lasted throughout his life, which cost him his friendship and which brought him a great deal of melancholy as well as joy. Taylor is particularly touching in the latter part of his biography, sketching in this unfulfilled love affair.

His accounts of the novels are good too; and he pauses at moments in the chronological flow to ponder questions such as "Why Thackeray Matters?" The greatest praise of this fine biography is that you come away in no doubt that Thackeray matters a great deal. --Adam Roberts

Review:

`Taylor's awareness of the task of biography is just one of the many delights of this fond, yet not overly reverent account.' --Independent on Sunday

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0701162317
• ISBN 13: 9780701162313
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 512