Thackeray - Prodigal Genius

A new approach to Thackeray. Although this study embraces all his work, it switches attention from his late novels, and bases the case for his imaginative vitality on the multifarious material - reviews, travel books, burlesques, Punch articles - that he turned out, mostly under severe financial stress, at the start of his writing career. Here was the breeding ground of Vanity Fair ; here we find the subversive Thackeray, foe of humbug and high art, waylaying snobbery and the cant of social reformers with bravura and buffoonery - the Thackeray who, in Trollope's words, 'laughed, and ate, and drank, and threw his pearls about with miraculous profusion.' In portraying the range and intensity of Thackeray's imagination, topics singled out include: light and painting; ballet dancers; pantomime; haute cuisine ; time's ruins; and the rainbow realm of commerce. The picture of Thackeray, as man and artist, that emerges, is fresh and challenging.

About the author

John Carey is an Emeritus Professor at Oxford University. His books include studies of Donne, Dickens and Thackeray, The Intellectuals and the Masses, What Good Are the Arts? and a life of William Golding.

Summary

Presents a fresh approach to Thackeray. This study portrays the range and intensity of Thackeray's imagination. It contains topics including: light and painting; ballet dancers; pantomime; haute cuisine; time's ruins; and the rainbow realm of commerce.

Product details

• Authors: John Carey, Carey John
• Assisted by: Joh Carey (Editor), John Carey (Editor)
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 17.07.2008
• EAN: 9780571244454
• ISBN: 978-0-571-24445-4
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 216 mm x 15 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Main work before 1945; Non-fiction book > Art, literature > Biographies, autobiographies; Biography: arts & entertainment, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Art; Criticism; Faber Finds; Writers