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Zusatztext "I do not say there is no character as well drawn in Shakespeare [as D'Artagnan]. I do say there is none that I love so wholly." --Robert Louis Stevenson "The lasting and universal popularity of The Three Musketeers shows that Dumas! by artlessly expressing his own nature in the persons of his heroes! was responding to that craving for action! strength and generosity which is a fact in all periods and all places." --Andreé Maurois Informationen zum Autor William Thackeray Klappentext William Makepeace Thackeray's classic tale of class! society! and corruption! soon to be an Amazon mini-series starring Olivia Cooke 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-military and domestic-are fought! fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia! bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure. Leseprobe Chiswick Mall While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A black servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton's shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window of that lady's own drawing-room. "It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima. "Sambo, the black servant, has just rung the bell; and the coachman has a new red waistcoat." "Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss Sedley's departure, Miss Jemima?" asked Miss Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself. "The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister," replied Miss Jemima; "we have made her a bow-pot." "Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, 'tis more genteel." "Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt for making it, in Amelia's box." "And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss Sedley's account. This is it, is it? Very good--ninety-three pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley, Esquire, and to seal this billet which I have written to his lady." In Miss Jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was Jemima's opinion that if anything could console Mrs. Birch for her daughter's loss, it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton announced the event. In the present instance Miss Pinkerton's "billet" was to the following effect: -The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18- Madam,
