The Harvard Classics, Vol. 28: Essays, English and American (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Harvard Classics, Vol. 28: Essays, English and American

William makepeace thackeray, one of the greatest of English novel ists, was born at Calcutta, India, on July 18, 1811, where his father held an administrative position. He was sent to England at six for his educa tion, which he received at the Charterhouse and Cambridge, after which he began, but did not prosecute, the study of law. Having lost his means, in part by gambling, he made up his mind to earn his living as an artist, and went to Paris to study. He had some natural gift for drawing, which he had already employed in caricature, but, though he made interesting and amusing illustrations for his books, he never acquired any marked technical skill.

He now turned to literature, and, on the strength of an appointment as Paris correspondent of a short-lived radical newspaper, he married. Ou the failure of the newspaper he took to miscellaneous journalism and the reviewing of books and pictures, his most important work appearing in F raser's Magazine and Punch. In 1840 his wife's mind became clouded, and, though she never recovered, she lived on till 1894.

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