File:One year course in English and American literature; an introduction to the chief authors in English and American literature, with reading lists and references for further study (1909) (14783974315).jpg

Identifier: oneyearcourseine00heyd (find matches)
Title: One year course in English and American literature; an introduction to the chief authors in English and American literature, with reading lists and references for further study
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Heydrick, Benjamin Alexander, 1871- (from old catalog)
Subjects: English literature American literature
Publisher: New York city, Hinds, Noble & Eldredge
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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readers ashas no other writer of his time.William Makepeace Thackeray(1811-1863), the second greatnovelist of the period, was bornin Calcutta, the son of an Eng-lish civil service official. Hewas taken to England as a child,and educated at the CharterHouse School and at Oxford.He studied law for a time; thenwent to Paris to study art. Re-verses of fortune obliged him toearn his living, and he returnedto London to write for news-papers and magazines. He wasa contributor to Punch, the fa-mous humorous weekly. Not until he was forty-five did hediscover his true field, the novel. In Vanity Fair, a storyof English society, he made his first success. This was fol-lowed by four other long novels, and by the volumes entitledThe Four Georges and English Humorists of the EighteenthCentury. His home life was sad : early in his married lifehis wifes mind gave way, and she never recovered. Hislater years were cheered by the companionship of hisdaughter, now Mrs. Ritchie, who has edited his works.
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\JjAm/SL*osAz<*j^ 110 THE VICTORIAN ERA Thackeray is the novelist of the upper class of Englishsociety, as Dickens is of the lower class. At college andafterwards his associates were professional men, men ofletters, members of the aristocracy, and society people.When he became a novelist he described in Vanity Fairand Pendennis this world he knew. It was a brilliantworld, with its witty, cultured people, its imposing socialstructure with royalty at the top, — a glittering spectacle in-deed. Yet it was not altogether a lovely world; the bestqualities of mind and heart counted for nothing besidesocial success. It had its impostors and cheats, and thelords and ladies, nay royalty itself, were sometimes verypitiful creatures. His comment upon it all is — Vanity Fair.In Henry Esmond he turned aside from the present dayand drew a picture of life in the eighteenth century, a pic-ture so true that it ranks as one of the greatest historicalnovels in English. In The Nezucomes, a. later n

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