Word: thackeray
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...THACKERAY: THE AGE OF WISDOM-1847-1863 (523 pp.)-Gordon N. Ray-McGraw-Hill...
William Makepeace Thackeray was the greatest prose stylist of his day, and the tallest (6 ft. 3 in.). Once, staring over the heads of a crowd, he saw himself being watched at a distance by "a strange visage" that studied him "with an expression of comical woebegoneness." Just as he was getting interested in the "rueful being," he discovered that it was himself, reflected in a mirror...
...previous volume, Thackeray: The Uses of Adversity, University of Illinois Provost Gordon N. Ray, No. 1 living authority on Thackeray, described the tragedies that went into the making of the "rueful being"-particularly the death of Thackeray's infant daughter Jane and the insanity of his young wife Isabella. The new volume shows the saddened giant in his prime-the famed, wealthy author of Vanity Fair and Henry Esmond; the doting father of two idolizing, teen-age daughters; the hero and leading spirit of all who detested the rambunctious literary supremacy of Charles Dickens. Author Ray's biography...
...Victorian world came face to face with genius in its most overwhelming form, approaching the borders of madness and self-destruction. "No gentleman" was the well-bred Victorian's verdict on Dickens-confirmed when his home broke up because of his passion for Actress Ellen Ternan. But Thackeray was a gentleman-"as polished as a steel mirror and as cold," "a natural swell," a Platonic lover who politely bowed himself out of his passion for a married woman when her husband objected. In public, Thackeray came to represent everything that Dickens derided in the life of high society...
...Much of Thackeray's hauteur was put on to conceal the violent, sudden spasms of pain that came from his malfunctioning stomach and bladder. Much was a disguise for his sensitivity and loneliness. The rest was a sort of game. He was proud of being a great gourmet-like his friend Lord Houghton. who died murmuring: "My exit is the result of too many entrees." He was a wit; once he greeted a quack doctor with "a very low bow" and the words: "I hope, sir, that you will live longer than your patients." He tempered the generosity...