William Makepeace
Thackeray led a troubled life, plagued by a painful recurring urinary problem,
financial failures, and a mentally deranged wife to whose care he devoted much
of his time. His saga started in India, where William was born in Calcutta to an
Anglo-Indian family on July 18, 1811. His father died of a fever when William
was four, and at five he was shipped off to England for an education, while his
mother remained in India and married her childhood sweetheart.
Thackeray studied—or,
rather, didn’t study—at Trinity College, Cambridge, frittering away his time at
wine parties and on long excursions to the Continent to gamble. He left Cambridge after two years with
no degree. He wandered for a while around Germany, where he met Goethe, and
then returned to London, where he lived large, drinking, gambling, and
womanizing, supported by his inheritance from his father—the princely sum of
£17,000—until it was wiped out in the failure of an Indian bank. Thackeray then
studied law briefly, and after that began to work as a hack journalist for
various publications.
It was during this period
that he very likely developed gonorrhea, which led to a stricture in his
urethra, a condition that recurred throughout his life, incapacitating him for
days at a time. He also acquired
his lifelong devotion to food and drink—“guttling and gorging” being his
self-confessed major activities when he wasn’t writing. He was especially fond of hot peppers,
which invariably caused him indigestion.
As a writer for several
publications, most notably Punch, he
moved back and forth between London and Paris, where he met Isabella Shawe, a
young woman who had also been born in India. They exchanged billets-doux (a number
of which dealt with her concern over her constipation) and were married in
1836.
After the birth of their
third child, Isabella began to show signs of mental illness. Thackeray did everything possible to
restore her health, placing her in spas and sanitariums, traveling with her on
the Continent, and taking a sea voyage to visit her mother in Ireland, during
which she threw herself overboard and would have drowned, except for an air
pocket in her capacious crinoline dress. Thackeray continued to write
frantically, turning out moderately successful travel books, hoping to ease the
financial burdens that her illness caused.
Eventually the Thackerays
settled in England, where Isabella was placed in a private home and Thackeray
found lodgings for himself, his children, and his mother in London.
In 1847, Thackeray hit the
big time with the success of his novel Vanity
Fair. He followed it in quick
succession with Pendennis, The History of
Henry Esmond, The Rose and the Ring, and Barry Lyndon. With his finances thus assured, he was able to live
an easy life in London, hobnobbing with Charles Dickens and other literary
figures. His main pastime other than eating and drinking was horseback
riding. He also began to dote upon
Jane Brookfield, the wife of an old Cambridge chum. The three became involved
in an emotionally-fraught triangle—although probably platonic on Thackeray’s
part—which ended only when Thackeray took an extended visit to America.
On December 23, 1863,
Thackeray dined out with friends and returned to his London home, a mansion in
Kensington Palace Gardens. Before he could undress for bed, a blood vessel in
his brain burst, and he was found dead the next morning of a cerebral
hemorrhage at the age of fifty-two.
Never a very religious
man, Thackeray once said of an afterlife: “"About my future
state I don't know. I leave it in the disposal of the awful Father." He
was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery on a clear crisp morning without a formal
ceremony. Several thousand people, including Charles Dickens, attended. A memorial bust of Thackeray was later
erected in Westminster Abbey.
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