Vanity Fair first hit Victorian London in 1847, and the serialized novel established its author, William Makepeace Thackeray, as a serious literary challenge to his popular contemporary Charles Dickens. By then, the thirty-six-year-old Thackeray had survived a difficult Anglo-Indian childhood dominated by the figure of his mother; the loss of the fortune he had made in his early twenties; ten arduous years of hack work; and a disastrous marriage to the beautiful Isabelle Shaw, who went irreversibly mad and left him to ...
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Vanity Fair first hit Victorian London in 1847, and the serialized novel established its author, William Makepeace Thackeray, as a serious literary challenge to his popular contemporary Charles Dickens. By then, the thirty-six-year-old Thackeray had survived a difficult Anglo-Indian childhood dominated by the figure of his mother; the loss of the fortune he had made in his early twenties; ten arduous years of hack work; and a disastrous marriage to the beautiful Isabelle Shaw, who went irreversibly mad and left him to parent alone, and in conditions near penury, two small daughters.Success, however, did not end Thackeray's troubles, as this incisive new biography by D. J. Taylor poignantly shows. Drawing on a variety of unpublished and little-known sources, and with a novelist's feel for the intricacies of character and relationships, Taylor explores Thackeray's anguished platonic love affair with the wife of one of his oldest friends, his bitter quarrels with more eminent Victorians, his obsession with earning enough money to maintain his family, and his failure to match the success of Vanity Fair with later novels like Pendennis and The History of Henry Esmond.Taylor's portrait of Thackeray -- as doting father, restive son, despairing husband, literary lion, rejected lover, and loyal friend -- is complex, and the narrative is compelling.
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Seller's Description:
Very Good. Very Good condition. Very Good dust jacket. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain light spine creasing or a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp.
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Seller's Description:
Fine in NF jacket. Neither remainder nor ex-lib. Hardcover in red jacket with photo of Thackeray to front, 8vo. xv + 494ppp. Index, endnotes, b/w plates. Illustrations from period editions throughout. Fine/NF to Fine. Book has faint foxing just beginning to page edges. Jacket has very mild softening to spine ends with faint rolling crease at lower end. Book and jacket are otherwise as new: bright, sharp and unmarked with strong, never broken-in binding and hinges. Jacket in Brodart.
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Seller's Description:
Very good in very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 494 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Book Condition: Near fine. Tight binding and clean inside pages.
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Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. 0786709103. Stiff crisp book in barely rubbed dust jacket; unmarked but for remainder line to top edge.; 9.2 X 6.0 X 1.4 inches; 494 pages.
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New. 0786709103. *** FREE UPGRADE to Courier/Priority Shipping Upon Request ***-*** IN STOCK AND IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR SHIPMENT-Flawless--with a bonus offer--
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Seller's Description:
Very Good in Very Good, Not Price Clipped jacket. Book Complete number line from 1 to 9; some edge wear to boards and dust jacket; remainder line on top edge near spine; otherwise a solid, clean copy with no marking or underlining; collectible condition; illustrated with black and white photographs and reproductions of paintings.
