Sketches And Travels In London Notes Of A Journey From Cornhill To Grand Cairo

Excerpt from Sketches and Travels in London: Notes of a Journey From Cornhill to Grand Cairo The papers brought together under the head of Sketches and Travels in London were contributed to Punch from 1847 to 1850, over the signature of "Spec," - except "Going to See a Man Hanged," which had appeared in Fraser's Magazine in 1840, but was added to the collection in the revised edition. Of this last Mr. Eyre Crowe speaks in his account of early days in the Coram Street house, and reflects the evidently deep impression of the experience Thackeray transmitted to those about him: "He tossed on his pillow, thinking all night of the wretch Courvoisier, the Swiss valet, whose exit is described in 'Going to See a Man Hanged.'" The later sketches and travels were most of them written in the Young Street study; Mrs. Ritchie has described his method of work upon them there, and upon the drawings with which in most cases he accompanied them; his daughters helping him by preparing the woodblocks, and sometimes the boy from the Punch office "waiting in the hall." Mrs. Ritchie confirms, too, the statement often made, that the original of Whitestock in "The Curate's Walk" was her father's old friend William Brookfield. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

William Makepeace Thackeray (18 July 1811 - 24 December 1863) was an English novelist of the 19th century. He is known for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society. BIOGRAPHY: Thackeray, an only child, was born in Calcutta, British India, where his father, Richmond Thackeray (1 September 1781 - 13 September 1815), was secretary to the Board of Revenue in the British East India Company. His mother, Anne Becher (1792-1864), was the second daughter of Harriet Becher and John Harman Becher, who was also a secretary (writer) for the East India Company. Richmond died in 1815, which caused Anne to send her son to England in 1816, while she remained in British India. The ship on which he travelled made a short stopover at St. Helena, where the imprisoned Napoleon was pointed out to him. Once in England he was educated at schools in Southampton and Chiswick, and then at Charterhouse School, where he became a close friend of John Leech. Thackeray disliked Charterhouse, and parodied it in his fiction as "Slaughterhouse." Nevertheless, Thackeray was honoured in the Charterhouse Chapel with a monument after his death. Illness in his last year there, during which he reportedly grew to his full height of six foot three, postponed his matriculation at Trinity College, Cambridge, until February 1829.[citation needed]Never too keen on academic studies, Thackeray left Cambridge in 1830, but some of his earliest published writing appeared in two university periodicals, The Snob and The Gownsman. Thackeray then travelled for some time on the continent, visiting Paris and Weimar, where he met Goethe. He returned to England and began to study law at the Middle Temple, but soon gave that up. On reaching the age of 21 he came into his inheritance from his father, but he squandered much of it on gambling and on funding two unsuccessful newspapers, The National Standard and The Constitutional, for which he had hoped to write. He also lost a good part of his fortune in the collapse of two Indian banks. Forced to consider a profession to support himself, he turned first to art, which he studied in Paris, but did not pursue it, except in later years as the illustrator of some of his own novels and other writings. Thackeray's years of semi-idleness ended after he married, on 20 August 1836, Isabella Gethin Shawe (1816-1893), second daughter of Isabella Creagh Shawe and Matthew Shawe, a colonel who had died after distinguished service, primarily in India. The Thackerays had three children, all girls: Anne Isabella (1837-1919), Jane (who died at eight months old) and Harriet Marian (1840-1875), who married Sir Leslie Stephen, editor, biographer and philosopher. Thackeray now began "writing for his life," as he put it, turning to journalism in an effort to support his young family. He primarily worked for Fraser's Magazine, a sharp-witted and sharp-tongued conservative publication for which he produced art criticism, short fictional sketches, and two longer fictional works, Catherine and The Luck of Barry Lyndon. Between 1837 and 1840 he also reviewed books for The Times. He was also a regular contributor to The Morning Chronicle and The Foreign Quarterly Review. Later, through his connection to the illustrator John Leech, he began writing for the newly created magazine Punch, in which he published The Snob Papers, later collected as The Book of Snobs. This work popularised the modern meaning of the word "snob."Thackeray was a regular contributor to Punch between 1843 and 1854..........