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The Virginians
This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!
718 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1859
33 people are currently reading
322 people want to read
About the author
William Makepeace Thackeray
4,483 books1,343 followersWilliam Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist, satirist, and journalist, best known for his keen social commentary and his novel Vanity Fair (1847–1848). His works often explored themes of ambition, hypocrisy, and the moral failings of British society, making him one of the most significant literary figures of the Victorian era.
Born in Calcutta, British India, he was sent to England for his education after his father’s death. He attended Charterhouse School, where he developed a distaste for the rigid school system, and later enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge. However, he left without earning a degree, instead traveling in Europe and pursuing artistic ambitions.
After losing much of his inheritance due to bad investments, Thackeray turned to writing for a living. He contributed satirical sketches, essays, and stories to periodicals such as Fraser’s Magazine and Punch, gradually building a reputation for his sharp wit and keen observational skills. His breakthrough came with Vanity Fair, a panoramic satire of English society that introduced the enduring character of Becky Sharp, a resourceful and amoral social climber.
Thackeray’s later novels, including Pendennis (1848–1850), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), and The Newcomes (1853–1855), continued to explore the lives of the English upper and middle classes, often focusing on the contrast between personal virtue and social ambition. His historical novel Henry Esmond was particularly praised for its detailed 18th-century setting and complex characterization.
In addition to his fiction, Thackeray was a noted public speaker and essayist, delivering lectures on the English humorists of the 18th century and on The Four Georges, a critical look at the British monarchy.
Despite his literary success, he lived with personal struggles, including the mental illness of his wife, Isabella, which deeply affected him. He remained devoted to his two daughters and was known for his kindness and generosity among his friends and colleagues.
His works remain widely read, appreciated for their incisive humor, rich characterizations, and unflinching critique of social pretensions.
Born in Calcutta, British India, he was sent to England for his education after his father’s death. He attended Charterhouse School, where he developed a distaste for the rigid school system, and later enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge. However, he left without earning a degree, instead traveling in Europe and pursuing artistic ambitions.
After losing much of his inheritance due to bad investments, Thackeray turned to writing for a living. He contributed satirical sketches, essays, and stories to periodicals such as Fraser’s Magazine and Punch, gradually building a reputation for his sharp wit and keen observational skills. His breakthrough came with Vanity Fair, a panoramic satire of English society that introduced the enduring character of Becky Sharp, a resourceful and amoral social climber.
Thackeray’s later novels, including Pendennis (1848–1850), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), and The Newcomes (1853–1855), continued to explore the lives of the English upper and middle classes, often focusing on the contrast between personal virtue and social ambition. His historical novel Henry Esmond was particularly praised for its detailed 18th-century setting and complex characterization.
In addition to his fiction, Thackeray was a noted public speaker and essayist, delivering lectures on the English humorists of the 18th century and on The Four Georges, a critical look at the British monarchy.
Despite his literary success, he lived with personal struggles, including the mental illness of his wife, Isabella, which deeply affected him. He remained devoted to his two daughters and was known for his kindness and generosity among his friends and colleagues.
His works remain widely read, appreciated for their incisive humor, rich characterizations, and unflinching critique of social pretensions.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 14, 2016
My advice is not to start reading this unless you know you have a great deal of spare time ahead. Oh, and you must have read all of Thackeray's other novels first, or you'll miss many of the references. And then you're in for a real treat....this novel, as with all his others apart from Vanity Fair, starts interminably slowly, but then grows and grows till by the end you are engrossed in the world he creates. I love the way he seamlessly mixes fact and fiction, and the central theme, the contrast between the twin brothers, is beautifully developed. It's fascinating to see how Bad Beatrix grew old, and his younger women, Fanny, Theo and Hetty, are a delight. Thackeray is much the best Victorian novelist at portraying real women.
Another aspect of this novel which interested me is his commentary on the novels that his characters were reading - the works of Richardson and Fielding (who appear, along with snuffy old Dr Johnson) - and how he contrasts the attitudes to morals then (18th century) and his time, a century later.
Really, if you have time, read Thackeray - he's unfairly neglected nowadays but well worth the investment.
Another aspect of this novel which interested me is his commentary on the novels that his characters were reading - the works of Richardson and Fielding (who appear, along with snuffy old Dr Johnson) - and how he contrasts the attitudes to morals then (18th century) and his time, a century later.
Really, if you have time, read Thackeray - he's unfairly neglected nowadays but well worth the investment.
January 30, 2023
so long and so bad. i cannot recommend. harry briefly goes to the isle of wight with his regiment
June 5, 2012
This is a lovely, leisurely read with a sly sense of humor and well-drawn characters. It chronicles the lives of twin brothers born in Virginia before the revolutionary war to an aristocratic British family as they participate in colonial and homeland society, fight in historical battles, and make their way through the political drama of the day. The historical setting is vibrantly lifelike, and Thackeray introduces figures such as General George Washington and King George III seamlessly into the story.
This is not the book to read if you are looking for a lot of drama and tension. But if you want interesting characters and a story well-told at an unhurried pace, this is exactly right.
This is not the book to read if you are looking for a lot of drama and tension. But if you want interesting characters and a story well-told at an unhurried pace, this is exactly right.
March 31, 2023
I adored the History of Henry Esmond, and think it ought to be better known, because it has a great underdog hero, a real sense of immersion in the historical age in which it is set, the reign of Queen Anne, a secret which changes everything at the end, and a surprising love story. Thackeray obviously conceived this as a sequel with Henry's two grandsons, twin brothers, ending up fighting on opposite sides in the American Wars of Independence. The trouble is this ends up with a divided focus, with a sudden switch between them in the middle, and neither brother is as interesting a character as their grandfather. The result is a hugely long shaggy dog story, not a particularly compelling sense of any of the battles or wars described, with brief but not very interesting appearances by famous people like George Washington, James Wolfe, Lafayette, Dr Johnson and David Garrick. The most memorable things about it are the minor characters: Henry Esmond's old love now the imperious old lady Bernstein, the unscrupulous Earl of Castlewood and his dastardly brother Will, the young American heiress and minx who becomes the Countess of Castlewood and whose assertiveness terrifies the life out of everyone she meets. There is a lot of casual racism surrounding the brothers' black slaves that some might be very offended by. I'm glad I finished it, although it was a long haul and I confess I skipped over some of the last few pages. Thackeray is a great writer: more ascerbic, more eighteenth century than Dickens, with much more interest in women as flesh and blood human beings. I shall turn my attention to one of his better books next.
August 24, 2017
This book has a promising premise with two Virginia brothers fighting on opposite sides of the Revolutionary War. It has an author whose word choices and warm observations I really liked in Vanity Fair. Yet, where the option given to me, I would borrow a term from Facebook and review it with a big "meh" of indifference.
It doesn't really seem to GO anywhere. There isn't a lot of action as it meanders its way into the Revolutionary War. Beyond the outlines of some personality differences, I didn't really feel like I got to know the two brothers. I will own it. My palette for tasting wonder in novels is not particularly sophisticated, but this when I finished because I started it.
It doesn't really seem to GO anywhere. There isn't a lot of action as it meanders its way into the Revolutionary War. Beyond the outlines of some personality differences, I didn't really feel like I got to know the two brothers. I will own it. My palette for tasting wonder in novels is not particularly sophisticated, but this when I finished because I started it.
October 23, 2013
I've read 100 books in 3 years but never have I found a book so ... so interminable. It's a potboiler sequel to Henry Esmond that made me wonder if inconsequential plot churn like this is really so much better than a soap like Downton Abbey. It is of course because it is so well written - which means that if I really was trapped in this book for three weeks it was at least a comfortable gilded cage.
April 17, 2017
The story of two brothers, born in the British colony of Virginia, who ultimately end up fighting on opposite sides in the American War of Independence. A very long but generally gripping read, with many twists along the way. Excellent.
January 25, 2024
A brilliant 1000 page novel follow up to the already great History of Henry Edmond.
February 7, 2020
A sequel to Henry Esmond. Meandering at times, Thackeray's ability to create appealing (and unappealing) characters shines through. One almost feels sorry for those upper class types with guaranteed incomes, somehow unaware of the miserable lives of the people who generate it for them. They apparently have absolutely nothing to do, except gambling away their fortunes to each other while playing cards. Now, I enjoy a hand a cards, but I'd rather have a job.
The characters are either charming and earnest, or conniving and selfish. But all rather harmless. The real villain of the piece is the English class system. The powers that be and the powers that profit made much progress in their efforts to replicate "everyone knows their place" in the American colonies. But their desperate need to stratify society didn't make the Atlantic voyage without some baggage shifting.
Time, distance and the magnetism of geography were beginning to create a cleft between colonizers and colonists. American offered freedom from society strictures (unless you happened to be a slave, an irony no character besides the narrator seems to notice). Even those colonists who clung to the old ways were still not quite up to snuff by the standards of the Mother County (although oodles of money might compensate for uncouthness). I was rather astonished at the practise of some in England to apply Indigenous slurs to European settlers. I tremble to think how they would describe actual native people, if they would ever think of them.
Thackeray is ingenious in recounting the history of this cultural divergence at the personal level. In other words, it's just so much easier to understand history when you can visualize how it affected actual people. This MAY also be true of military history, but I for one couldn't follow all those battles and tactical manoeuvring.
A long haul, and I have a softer spot for Henry Esmond, but worth reading.
The characters are either charming and earnest, or conniving and selfish. But all rather harmless. The real villain of the piece is the English class system. The powers that be and the powers that profit made much progress in their efforts to replicate "everyone knows their place" in the American colonies. But their desperate need to stratify society didn't make the Atlantic voyage without some baggage shifting.
Time, distance and the magnetism of geography were beginning to create a cleft between colonizers and colonists. American offered freedom from society strictures (unless you happened to be a slave, an irony no character besides the narrator seems to notice). Even those colonists who clung to the old ways were still not quite up to snuff by the standards of the Mother County (although oodles of money might compensate for uncouthness). I was rather astonished at the practise of some in England to apply Indigenous slurs to European settlers. I tremble to think how they would describe actual native people, if they would ever think of them.
Thackeray is ingenious in recounting the history of this cultural divergence at the personal level. In other words, it's just so much easier to understand history when you can visualize how it affected actual people. This MAY also be true of military history, but I for one couldn't follow all those battles and tactical manoeuvring.
A long haul, and I have a softer spot for Henry Esmond, but worth reading.
February 19, 2024
This novel might almost be studied as a group of portraits of the slighter nobility of England and the gentry of Virginia. The author shows us numerous portraits: a tyrannical mother who is the head of a great Colonial estate; her two sons, one to become a great soldier under Washington, the other an English gentleman. We see England in the time of Johnson and Richardson and David Garrick and America in the early days of her fight for independence. Graphic and very very derisive, this novel sketched voluminous beautiful pen-pics in my mind.
March 12, 2018
I found this a dreadfully dull book ; very little interesting about the main plot, and nothing about the side plots. Hard for me to believe this is by the author of "Vanity Fair"!
August 4, 2018
Not quite a worthy followup to Henry Esmond but good enough.
April 8, 2019
The childhood stuff is very bad, but it gets better. If you're this deep into Thackeray's works you're more than desperate enough to finish this one.
February 25, 2017
A very interesting book about a loyalist family pre-revolution.
March 7, 2017
Tedious pacing combined with mediocre writing that had an unfortunate jarring habit of lapsing into the present tense make this a struggle to read. My advice is not to bother; like a lot of early historical fiction (ahem - Walter Scott - ahem), Thackeray cannot help but stick as many persons of historical importance into his narrative as possible, even when they are completely superfluous name-drops. Thus are our heroes the neighbors of George Washington, and Samuel Johnson eating dinner at the other side of the inn.
April 30, 2015
Not a fast read. Providing background for family history in the French and Indian Wars. Recommended in "List of the Colonial Soldiers of Virginia," by H. J. Eckenrode, Archivist.
Always wanted to read Thackeray, This book is very oddly organized, confusing. Did lead me to more info in French & Indian Wars. but as a novel didn't work.
Always wanted to read Thackeray, This book is very oddly organized, confusing. Did lead me to more info in French & Indian Wars. but as a novel didn't work.
July 25, 2013
This book was just ok - a little long and tedious. I really liked the characters in the beginning, but they started to get on my nerves after a while. There is some interesting history, though.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews