The novelist William Makepeace Thackaray was born on this date in 1811. He is known for his satirical works, in particular Vanity Fair. 10 things you might not know about him:
He was an only child and was born in India where his father was high rank of secretary to the board of revenue in the British East India Company. His mother, Anne, also worked for the company.
His father died in 1815 and William was sent to England. He went to various schools, including Charterhouse, which he hated so much that he parodied it in his writings as “Slaughterhouse”. However, it seems the school didn’t hold it against him too much as there is a monument to him in the chapel there.
He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, but dropped out to go travelling in Europe. Even so, some of his earliest published writing appeared in two of the university’s periodicals, The Snob and The Gownsman.
He spent some time studying art in Paris and although he didn’t pursue art as a career it came in handy as he would illustrate his novels.
He married Isabella Gethin Shawe in 1836, which put an end to his gambling and dodgy investing which had seen off most of his inheritance. They had three children which meant he had to work to support his family. They’d only been married four year, however, when Isabella became mentally ill. At first, he spent a lot of time away as he couldn’t get any work done at home, but then, realising how sick she was, decided to take her on a trip to Ireland. During the crossing Isabella threw herself overboard but was saved. Thackeray desperately sought cures for her, but nothing worked, and she was in and out of various asylums. Eventually he left her to be cared for by a Mrs. Bakewell at Camberwell. William had short relationships with other women after this but nothing permanent.
He ran for parliament as a liberal in Oxford in 1857 but narrowly lost the vote.
Thackeray was a member of the Albion Lodge of the Ancient Order of Druids at Oxford.
During the Victorian era Thackeray was ranked second only to Charles Dickens. Charlotte Brontë was a big fan and dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to him. Today, he’s not as widely read as Dickens, and Vanity Fair seems to be the only one of his novels which is widely read. Anne Frank, however, read something else of his: she mentions his work The Colonel in her diary.
He didn’t live the healthiest lifestyle. He has been described as "the greatest literary glutton who ever lived", eating and drinking to excess and never doing any exercise, although he did keep a Horse and enjoyed riding. He had a fondness for spicy food and couldn’t give it up, despite the digestive problems it caused.
He died suddenly from a stroke at the age of 52. An estimated 7,000 people attended his funeral at Kensington Gardens.
The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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