Mostrando resultados por autor "William Makepeace Thackeray" en Todas las categorías

Set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this classic gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp who craves wealth and a position in society. Calculating and determined to succeed, she charms, deceives and manipulates everyone she meets. A novel of early 19th-century English society, it takes its title from the place designated as the centre of human corruption in John Bunyan's 17th-century allegory.

No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.

Set in the reign of Queen Anne, Thackeray's novel follows the troubled progress of Henry Esmond Esq, a gentleman and an officer in Marlborough's army. Enamoured of the Jacobite Lady Castlewood and her wayward daughter Beatrix, he distinguishes himself in Marlborough's campaigns against Louis XIV, but comes to grief in an ingenious but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to depose George I in favour of the Old Pretender.

Generally considered to be his masterpiece, Vanity Fair is Thackeray's resplendent social satire that exposes the greed and corruption raging in England during the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars. Subtitled "A Novel Without a Hero", it traces the changing fortunes of two unforgettable women: the scheming opportunist Becky Sharp, one of literature's most resourceful, engaging, and amoral heroines, and her foil, the faithful, naive Amelia Sedley.

Vanity Fair, with its rich cast of characters, takes place on the snakes-and-ladders board of life. Amelia Sedley, daughter of a wealthy merchant, has a loving mother to supervise her courtship. Becky Sharp, an orphan, has to use her wit, charm, and resourcefulness to escape from her destiny as a governess. This she does ruthlessly, musing: "I think I could become a good woman, if I had £5,000 a year."

For an atheist it’s a great deal, though it does suggest atheism may have a weak point. For those of faith it’s a matter of jam now and purgatory tomorrow. A bargain many artists feel is something they can live with. For agnostics it’s usually a question of can the afterlife really be that bad, would workplace regulations reach all parts of heaven and hell. However, in this volume the terms are agreed and the Devil pays his fees and the character his dues, each happy to wait a few decades for the eternal payback.

Like Tom Jones before him, Barry Lyndon is one of the most lively and roguish characters in English literature. He may now be best known through the colorful Stanley Kubrick film released in 1975, but it is Thackeray who, in true 19th-century style, shows him best.

Napoleon has England on edge. For the cunning and conniving Becky Sharp, it’s an opportunity to take advantage of the chaos and improve her lowly station. Her friend Amelia Sedley, a blue-blood pawn, affords Becky entrée into the moneyed class. As the guileless Amelia pines for a rakish soldier, the ruthless Becky climbs upward, setting the stage for a domestic battlefield of greed, ambition, deception, and dizzying reversals of love and fortune.

Vanity Fair features two heroines: the faithful, loyal Amelia Sedley, and the beautiful and scheming social climber Becky Sharp. It also engages a huge cast of wonderful supporting characters as the novel spins from Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies to affairs of love and war on the Continent to liaisons in the dazzling ballrooms of London.

Vanity Fair centers on the young Becky Sharp and her dear friend Amelia Sedley during the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Rebecca Sharp is the daughter of an art teacher and a French dancer, being ambitious, intelligent, and strong willed in order to get what she wants out of society. She is often touted as amoral and an anti-heroine. Alternately, her friend Amelia is kind, good natured, and born into wealth. The interwoven fortunes of the two women play out among a backdrop of social skirmishes and human afflictions of pride and ego.

Best known today for his comic masterpiece, Vanity Fair, W. M. Thackeray was regarded in his time as the only rival to his contemporary, Charles Dickens. This collection includes a selection of his finest satirical fiction, as well as two fascinating programmes exploring his life and writings.

Vanity Fair is a satirical novel of manners which takes place during, and in the decade after, the battle of Waterloo in 1815. The various scenes in the novel range across Europe and England. It was first published in serial form beginning in 1847. The work is by turns witty, scintillating, brutally realistic, tragic, humorous, and always fascinating. The title of the book stems from Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”, where Vanity is a town along the pilgrim’s route, and which holds an eternal fair of the vanities. It is a place where people are ensnared by worldly things.

The Rose and The Ring is a satirical work of fantasy fiction by William Makepeace Thackeray, which was originally published in 1854. It is the tale of a fairy, a king of two kingdoms, their offspring, and an old woman. Set in the fictional countries of Paflagonia and Crim Tartary, it criticizes the attitudes of the British upper class and challenges their ideals of beauty and marriage. The story revolves around the lives and fortunes of four royal cousins, Princesses Angelica and Rosalba, and Princes Bulbo and Giglio. The narrative is filled with humor.

This book comes with an introduction and notes by Owen Knowles, University of Hull. Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven by acquisitive greed and soulless materialism, in which the narrator himself plays a brilliantly versatile role as a serio-comic observer. Although subtitled 'A Novel without a Hero', "Vanity Fair" follows the fortunes of two contrasting but inter-linked lives.

Barry Lyndon, first serialized in 1844, is a swashbuckling romp through the aristocratic Europe of the 18th century. The central character, a roguish Irishman, narrates most of the story in the first person, relating his adventures as a soldier in both the British and Prussian armies; as a gambler and confidence man under the guidance of his uncle, a practiced fraud; and as a fortune hunting gigolo in search of wealthy widows and heiresses.

One of the great Victorian novels by an author at the height of his powers, Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of the calculating, upwardly-mobile Becky Sharp and her gentle, good-hearted friend Amelia Sedley as they leave their boarding school and embark upon their lives in Vanity Fair–the social-climbing, wealth-obsessed world of Regency England in the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

The Virginians is a sweeping historical novel following the twin grandsons of Henry Esmond as they navigate war, romance, and loyalty during the American Revolution. With one brother fighting for the British and the other for the revolutionaries, their story is one of honor, love, and destiny. A must-listen for history and literature enthusiasts.

Assembled and edited by Julian Hawthorne and first published in 1907, the Old Time English volume of The Lock and Key Library features ten classic mysteries and ghost stories by Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Robert Maturin, Laurence Sterne, and William Makepeace Thackeray. This volume of The Lock and Key Library is sure to haunt and charm fans of ghost and detective mysteries alike.

In Pendennis, William Makepeace Thackeray skillfully shows the coming of age of Arthur Pendennis, a young gentleman trying to make his way in the world. Pen's difficulties in finding his place in the difficult maze of social obstacles are created to some extent by his being raised in the country and being from an ancient though impoverished family. We follow his course from the village in which he was raised via Oxbridge to London, meeting the most memorable characters, falling in and out of love, navigating the difficulties of society, and hopefully finally arriving at a happy end.

Series of five comic tales by William Makepeace Thackeray, adapted by Stephen Wyatt, recounting the rise and fall of early-19th century footman Charles Yellowplush.