Thackeray's Universe offers an engaging look into the life, world, and works of one of the greatest Victorian novelists. As Catherine Peters notes, Thackeray insisted on the idea of art as a by-product of life; the twentieth-century critical theories proposing a complete schism between writer and work would have been inconceivable to him. Arguing that both views can lead to serious distortions, Peters seeks to strike a balance between the two. Thus she examines how Thackeray constantly mined his own life (which was marked by repeated tragedies and setbacks) for the raw materials of his novels, while at the same time she shows that "the finished work is a work of art, and not a covert autobiography." She offers a compelling portrait of Thackeray's early childhood and schooling, his friendships and his marriage, and his work for Fraser's Monthly and Punch. She devotes entire chapters to his masterworks Vanity Fair, Pendennis, and Esmond and also draws illuminating comparisons between Thackeray's approach to writing fiction and that of his great contemporary, Dickens. The book is profusely illustrated with many of Thackeray's own drawings, which are interspersed throughout the text and add greatly to its charm and appeal.

Thackeray's Universe: Shifting Worlds of Imagination and Reality

Peters, Catherine

Biographies & Memoirs

Oxford University Press

Bonnie on the Beach: Level 3 (Little Reader Level 3)

McCloskey, Susan, Ph.D.

Children's Books

Houghton/Mifflin

Hats (Invitations to literacy)

A salad feast

Hyperion Paperbacks for Children

The King of Inventors

A biography of Victorian "Sensation" novelist Wilkie Collins, author of "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone". The author has drawn on many of Collins' unpublished letters and has also studied the manuscripts of his novels, plays and stories, including those which he did not complete.

Arts & Literature

Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd.

Home Run!

scholastic

1st Brockhamton edition 1st printing hardcover fine book &amp; fine dw a little typical browning of pages - We have traded for 20+ yearsIn stock shipped from our UK warehouse Each Book is in a protective clear bag, well packaged and normally sent out

Thackeray's universe: Shifting worlds of imagination and reality

Literature & Fiction

Faber and Faber

In this major biography, Catherine Peters explores the complicated life of Wilkie Collins, the greatest of the Victorian "Sensation" novelists and author of the famous Woman in White and The Moonstone. An intimate of Dickens and of the Pre-Raphaelites Holman Hunt and Millais, Collins was called the "king of inventors" by his publisher. On the surface, he was charming, unpretentious, and extremely good company, beloved by men and women. Beneath this façade, however, he was a complex and haunted man, addicted to laudanum, and his powerful, often violent novels revealed a dark side of Victorian life. He supported two common-law wives and their children, and as Peters shows, he provoked scandal by refusing to cloak his complicated love affairs in the customary hypocritical pretense of the period.
Having discovered a hitherto unknown autobiography by Wilkie Collins's mother, Peters draws on this document and on thousands of Collins's unpublished letters to create this provocative picture of his life and times. She describes in detail the saga of his exhausting struggle for better copyright protection for authors, especially for English authors in the United States. She has also studied the manuscripts of his novels, plays, and stories, including those which he did not complete, finding that some of his neglected novels turn out to be much more interesting than most readers realize today. This edition of the book has been supplemented to include an appendix describing Collins's "Tahitian" novel. Written when he was twenty, the manuscript of this work, Ioláni, was thought to have disappeared, but it has recently been rediscovered and sold to a private collector. For any Collins enthusiast, or for anyone interested in the literary history of the Victorian period, The King of Inventors provides a vivid account of Collins's unusual personal life in the context of his literary and artistic friendships and of newly revealed facts about the two women with whom he shared his "double life."
Originally published in 1993.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The King of Inventors (Princeton Legacy Library)

Princeton University Press

The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins (Princeton Legacy Library)

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