William Makepeace Thackery萨克雷简介1811-1863 The Book of Snobs 势利者集 ;Vanity Fair 名利场 ;History of Pendennis 潘丹尼斯的历史 ;The History of Henry Esmond 亨利 艾斯芒的历史 ;The Newcomes 纽可谟一家 ;The Virginians 弗吉尼亚人ntroductionborn July 18, 1811, Calcutta, Indiadied Dec. 24, 1863, London, Eng.William Makepeace Thackeray, detail of an oil painting by SamuelLaurence; in the National PortraitEnglish novelist whose reputation rests chiefly a novel of the Napoleonic period in England, and Esmond, Esq. (1852), set in the early 18th century.on Vanity Fair(1847 48),The History of HenryLife.Thackeray was the only son of Richmond Thackeray,an administratorintheEast India Company. His father died in 1815, and in 1816 Thackeray wassent hometo England. His mother joinedhim in 1820, having married(1817)an engineering officer with whom she had been in love before she met Richmond Thackeray. After attending several grammar schools Thackeray went in 1822 to Charterhouse, the London public (private) school, where he led a rather lonely and miserable existence.He was happier while studying at Trinity College, Cambridge (182830).In 1830 he left Cambridge without taking a degree, and during 183133he studiedlaw at the Middle Temple, London. He thenconsideredpaintingas a profession; his artistic gifts are seen in his letters and many ofhis early writings, which are amusingly and energetically illustrated.All his efforts at this time have a dilettante air, understandable in ayoung man who, on coming of age in 1832, had inherited 20,000 from hisfather. He soon lost his fortune, however, through gambling and unluckyspeculations and investments. In 1836, while studying art in Paris, hemarried a pennilessIrishgirl,and his stepfatherbought a newspaper sothathe couldremain thereas itscorrespondent.Afterthe papersfailure(1837) he took his wife back to Bloomsbury, London, and became ahardworking and prolific professional journalist.Of Thackeraysthree daughters,one died in infancy(1839); and in1840,after her last confinement, Mrs. Thackeray became insane. She neverrecovered and long survived her husband, living with friends in thecountry. Thackeray was, in effect, a widower, relying much on club lifeand gradually giving more and more attention to his daughters, for whomhe establisheda homein London in 1846. The serialpublicationin184748of his novel Vanity FairbroughtThackeray bothfame and prosperity,andfrom then on he was an established author on the English scene.Thackerays one serious romantic attachment in his later life, to JaneBrookfield, can be traced in his letters. She was the wife of a friendof his Cambridge days, and during Thackerays“widowerhood, ” when hislifelacked an emotional centre,he found one in the Brookfieldhome. HenryBrookfields insistence in 1851 that his wifes passionate but platonicfriendship with Thackeray should end was a grief greater than any theauthor had known since his wifes descent into insanity.Thackeray tried to find consolation in travel, lecturing in the UnitedStates on The EnglishHumoristsof the 18th Century (1852 53; published1853) and on The Four Georges (1855 56; published1860). But after1856he settled in London. He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1857,quarreled with Dickens, formerly a friendly rival, in the so-called“GarrickClub Affair” (1858),and in 1860 founded The CornhillMagazine,becoming its editor. After he died in 1863, a commemorative bust of him was placed in Westminster Abbey.Early writings.The 19th century was the age of the magazine, which had been developedto meet the demandfor familyreadingamong the growing middle class. Inthe late 1830s Thackeray became a notable contributor of articles onvaried topicsto FrasersMagazine, The NewMonthlyMagazine,and, later,to Punch. His work was unsigned or written under such pen names as Mr.Michael Angelo Titmarsh, Fitz-Boodle, The Fat Contributor, or IkeySolomons. He collectedthebestofthese earlywritingsin Miscellanies ,4 vol. (1855 57). These includeThe Yellowplush Correspondence,thememoirs and diaryof a young cockney footman writteninhis own vocabularyand style;Major Gahagan (1838 39), a fantasy of soldiering in India;Catherine(1839 40), a burlesque of the popular“Newgate novels ” ofromanticizedcrime and low life,and itselfa good realisticcrime story;The History of S