Makepeace Thackeray Delphi Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Illustrated)

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-908909-09-1
Verlag: Delphi Classics
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 1019 Seiten

Reihe: Series One

Sadly, Thackeray is seldom read nowadays. Except for 'Vanity Fair', he is mostly unknown and yet many of his contemporaries rated him as highly as Dickens. This comprehensive eBook aims to reveal the true genius of this master storyteller, featuring the complete works, with beautiful illustrations and special bonus texts. (Version 5)
* illustrated with hundreds of images, relating to Thackeray's life and works
* annotated with concise introductions to the novels and other texts
* images of how the monthly serials first appeared, giving your eReader a taste of the original Victorian texts
* ALL 12 novels, many with their original illustrations
* even includes the rare unfinished novel 'A Shabby Genteel Story'
* also includes the rare novels 'Lovel the Widower', 'Adventures of Philip' and the unfinished novel 'Denis Duval'
* ALL of the short stories and novellas, with excellent formatting
* even INCLUDES Thackeray's poetry, essays and Punch articles
* ALL of the travel writing and sketches, with many illustrations
* includes Trollope's biography of Thackeray
* scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres
* master table of contents to allow easy navigation around Thackeray's immense oeuvre.
* includes Thackeray's Collected Letters from 1847-1855
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CONTENTS
The Novels
CATHERINE
A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY
THE LUCK OF BARRY LYNDON
VANITY FAIR
THE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS
MEN'S WIVES
THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, ESQ.
THE NEWCOMES
THE VIRGINIANS
THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
LOVEL THE WIDOWER
DENIS DUVAL
The Shorter Fiction
ELIZABETH BROWNRIGGE
SULTAN STORK
LITTLE SPITZ
THE PROFESSOR
MISS LÖWE
THE YELLOWPLUSH PAPERS
THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN
THE FATAL BOOTS
COX'S DIARY
THE BEDFORD-ROW CONSPIRACY
THE HISTORY OF SAMUEL TITMARSH AND THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND
THE FITZ-BOODLE PAPERS
THE DIARY OF C. JEAMES DE LA PLUCHE, ESQ. WITH HIS LETTERS
A LEGEND OF THE RHINE
A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S
REBECCA AND ROWENA
BLUEBEARD'S GHOST
The Christmas Books
MRS. PERKINS'S BALL
OUR STREET
DOCTOR BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS
THE KICKLEBURYS ON THE RHINE
THE ROSE AND THE RING
The Sketches and Satires
CONTRIBUTIONS TO 'THE SNOB'
FLORE ET ZEPHYR
THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK
THE BOOK OF SNOBS
ROUNDABOUT PAPERS
SOME ROUNDABOUT PAPERS
DICKENS IN FRANCE
CHARACTER SKETCHES
SKETCHES AND TRAVELS IN LONDON
MR. BROWN'S LETTERS
THE PROSER
MISCELLANIES
The Play
THE WOLVES AND THE LAMB
The Poetry
LIST OF THE COMPLETE POETRY
The Travel Writing
NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO
THE PARIS SKETCH BOOK
LITTLE TRAVELS AND ROADSIDE SKETCHES
The Non-Fiction
NOVELS BY EMINENT HANDS
THE HISTORY OF THE NEXT FRENCH REVOLUTION
THE SECOND FUNERAL OF NAPOLEON
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
JOHN LEECH'S PICTURES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER
THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
THE FOUR GEORGES
CRITICAL REVIEWS
A LECTURE ON 'CHARITY AND HUMOUR'
VARIOUS ESSAYS, LETTERS, SKETCHES, ETC.
THE HISTORY OF DIONYSIUS DIDDLER.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO PUNCH
MISS TICKLETOBY'S LECTURES ON ENGLISH HISTORY
PAPERS BY THE FAT CONTRIBUTOR
MISCELLANEOUS CONTRIBUTIONS TO 'PUNCH'
'SPEC' AND 'PROSER' PAPERS
A PLAN FOR A PRIZE NOVEL
The Letters
A COLLECTION OF LETTERS 1847-1855
The Biography
THACKERAY BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE
In Memoriam W. M. Thackeray by Charles Dickens
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Autoren/Hrsg.

Makepeace Thackeray, William

Leseproben

CHAPTER II. IN WHICH ARE DEPICTED THE PLEASURES OF A SENTIMENTAL ATTACHMENT. It will not be necessary, for the purpose of this history, to follow out very closely all the adventures which occurred to Mrs. Catherine from the period when she quitted the “Bugle” and became the Captain’s lady; for although it would be just as easy to show as not, that the young woman, by following the man of her heart, had only yielded to an innocent impulse, and by remaining with him for a certain period, had proved the depth and strength of her affection for him, — although we might make very tender and eloquent apologies for the error of both parties, the reader might possibly be disgusted at such descriptions and such arguments: which, besides, are already done to his hand in the novel of “Ernest Maltravers” before mentioned. From the gentleman’s manner towards Mrs. Catherine, and from his brilliant and immediate success, the reader will doubtless have concluded, in the first place, that Gustavus Adolphus had not a very violent affection for Mrs. Cat; in the second place, that he was a professional lady-killer, and therefore likely at some period to resume his profession; thirdly, and to conclude, that a connection so begun, must, in the nature of things, be likely to end speedily. And so, to do the Count justice, it would, if he had been allowed to follow his own inclination entirely; for (as many young gentlemen will, and yet no praise to them) in about a week he began to be indifferent, in a month to be weary, in two months to be angry, in three to proceed to blows and curses; and, in short, to repent most bitterly the hour when he had ever been induced to present Mrs. Catherine the toe of his boot, for the purpose of lifting her on to his horse. “Egad!” said he to the Corporal one day, when confiding his griefs to Mr. Brock, “I wish my toe had been cut off before ever it served as a ladder to this little vixen.” “Or perhaps your honour would wish to kick her downstairs with it?” delicately suggested Mr. Brock. “Kick her! why, the wench would hold so fast by the banisters that I COULD not kick her down, Mr. Brock. To tell you a bit of a secret, I HAVE tried as much — not to kick her — no, no, not kick her, certainly: that’s ungentlemanly — but to INDUCE her to go back to that cursed pot-house where we fell in with her. I have given her many hints—” “Oh, yes, I saw your honour give her one yesterday — with a mug of beer. By the laws, as the ale run all down her face, and she clutched a knife to run at you, I don’t think I ever saw such a she-devil! That woman will do for your honour some day, if you provoke her.” “Do for ME? No, hang it, Mr. Brock, never! She loves every hair of my head, sir: she worships me, Corporal. Egad, yes! she worships me; and would much sooner apply a knife to her own weasand than scratch my little finger!” “I think she does,” said Mr. Brock. “I’m sure of it,” said the Captain. “Women, look you, are like dogs, they like to be ill-treated: they like it, sir; I know they do. I never had anything to do with a woman in my life but I ill-treated her, and she liked me the better.” “Mrs. Hall ought to be VERY fond of you then, sure enough!” said Mr. Corporal. “Very fond; — ha, ha! Corporal, you wag you — and so she IS very fond. Yesterday, after the knife-and-beer scene — no wonder I threw the liquor in her face: it was so dev’lish flat that no gentleman could drink it: and I told her never to draw it till dinner-time—” “Oh, it was enough to put an angel in a fury!” said Brock. “Well, yesterday, after the knife business, when you had got the carver out of her hand, off she flings to her bedroom, will not eat a bit of dinner forsooth, and remains locked up for a couple of hours. At two o’clock afternoon (I was over a tankard), out comes the little she-devil, her face pale, her eyes bleared, and the tip of her nose as red as fire with sniffling and weeping. Making for my hand, ‘Max,’ says she, ‘will you forgive me?’ ‘What!’ says I. ‘Forgive a murderess?’ says I. ‘No, curse me, never!’ ‘Your cruelty will kill me,’ sobbed she. ‘Cruelty be hanged!’ says I; ‘didn’t you draw that beer an hour before dinner?’ She could say nothing to THIS, you know, and I swore that every time she did so, I would fling it into her face again. Whereupon back she flounced to her chamber, where she wept and stormed until night-time.” “When you forgave her?” “I DID forgive her, that’s positive. You see I had supped at the ‘Rose’ along with Tom Trippet and half-a-dozen pretty fellows; and I had eased a great fat-headed Warwickshire landjunker — what d’ye call him? — squire, of forty pieces; and I’m dev’lish good-humoured when I’ve won, and so Cat and I made it up: but I’ve taught her never to bring me stale beer again — ha, ha!” This conversation will explain, a great deal better than any description of ours, however eloquent, the state of things as between Count Maximilian and Mrs. Catherine, and the feelings which they entertained for each other. The woman loved him, that was the fact. And, as we have shown in the previous chapter how John Hayes, a mean-spirited fellow as ever breathed, in respect of all other passions a pigmy, was in the passion of love a giant, and followed Mrs. Catherine with a furious longing which might seem at the first to be foreign to his nature; in the like manner, and playing at cross-purposes, Mrs. Hall had become smitten of the Captain; and, as he said truly, only liked him the better for the brutality which she received at his hands. For it is my opinion, madam, that love is a bodily infirmity, from which humankind can no more escape than from small-pox; and which attacks every one of us, from the first duke in the Peerage down to Jack Ketch inclusive: which has no respect for rank, virtue, or roguery in man, but sets each in his turn in a fever; which breaks out the deuce knows how or why, and, raging its appointed time, fills each individual of the one sex with a blind fury and longing for some one of the other (who may be pure, gentle, blue-eyed, beautiful, and good; or vile, shrewish, squinting, hunchbacked, and hideous, according to circumstances and luck); which dies away, perhaps, in the natural course, if left to have its way, but which contradiction causes to rage more furiously than ever. Is not history, from the Trojan war upwards and downwards, full of instances of such strange inexplicable passions? Was not Helen, by the most moderate calculation, ninety years of age when she went off with His Royal Highness Prince Paris of Troy? Was not Madame La Valliere ill-made, blear-eyed, tallow-complexioned, scraggy, and with hair like tow? Was not Wilkes the ugliest, charmingest, most successful man in the world? Such instances might be carried out so as to fill a volume; but cui bono? Love is fate, and not will; its origin not to be explained, its progress irresistible: and the best proof of this may be had at Bow Street any day, where if you ask any officer of the establishment how they take most thieves, he will tell you at the houses of the women. They must see the dear creatures though they hang for it; they will love, though they have their necks in the halter. And with regard to the other position, that ill-usage on the part of the man does not destroy the affection of the woman, have we not numberless police-reports, showing how, when a bystander would beat a husband for beating his wife, man and wife fall together on the interloper and punish him for his meddling? These points, then, being settled to the satisfaction of all parties, the reader will not be disposed to question the assertion that Mrs. Hall had a real affection for the gallant Count, and grew, as Mr. Brock was pleased to say, like a beefsteak, more tender as she was thumped. Poor thing, poor thing! his flashy airs and smart looks had overcome her in a single hour; and no more is wanted to plunge into love over head and ears; no more is wanted to make a first love with — and a woman’s first love lasts FOR EVER (a man’s twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth is perhaps the best): you can’t kill it, do what you will; it takes root, and lives and even grows, never mind what the soil may be in which it is planted, or the bitter weather it must bear — often as one has seen a wallflower grow — out of a stone. In the first weeks of their union, the Count had at least been liberal to her: she had a horse and fine clothes, and received abroad some of those flattering attentions which she held at such high price. He had, however, some ill-luck at play, or had been forced to pay some bills, or had some other satisfactory reason for being poor, and his establishment was very speedily diminished. He argued that, as Mrs. Catherine had been accustomed to wait on others all her life, she might now wait upon herself and him; and when the incident of the beer arose, she had been for some time employed as the Count’s housekeeper, with unlimited superintendence over his comfort, his cellar, his linen, and such matters as bachelors are delighted to make over to active female hands. To do the poor wretch justice, she actually kept the man’s menage in the best order; nor was there any point of extravagance with which she could be charged, except a little extravagance of dress displayed...