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The English Humourists, The Four Georges
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
- GenresNonfictionClassics
456 pages, Paperback
Published September 9, 2021
About the author
William Makepeace Thackeray
4,631 books1,381 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 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 31, 2016
Surprisingly readable. At first, when I realised that it wasn't a novel or short stories, I feared that it would be dull and unengaging. But I set myself a deadline for reading it which helped. Without that deadline I could have ended up taking months to plod through it with no plot to keep me going. But I read it and I found parts of it very interesting or enjoyable. It whetted my appetite to learn more about George III who showed evidence for potentially being a godly king.
Hearing about many of the prominent poets and novelists of the Eighteenth Century also aroused a degree of interest in them - or at least it did nothing to put me off of them. The English Humourists largely consisted of footnotes but these were often more interesting than the main text itself. It's certainly not a book I'd recommend to anyone, except perhaps to English literature students with an interest in writers of the Eighteenth Century). It didn't feel like a particularly useful book to spend my time on.
Hearing about many of the prominent poets and novelists of the Eighteenth Century also aroused a degree of interest in them - or at least it did nothing to put me off of them. The English Humourists largely consisted of footnotes but these were often more interesting than the main text itself. It's certainly not a book I'd recommend to anyone, except perhaps to English literature students with an interest in writers of the Eighteenth Century). It didn't feel like a particularly useful book to spend my time on.
February 13, 2021
Thackeray 'can't but laugh', and yet with the 'saddest heart', at the deathbed of Princess Sophia; the King's lovely devoted wife, the fairest of all the German princesses, tells him to marry again, and George I, the weak dissolute man, thinking to avow fidelity, replies 'J'aurai des maîtresses'. Thackeray sees Britain's four Hanoverian Georges as almost entirely ludicrous and embarrassing. The only one who involved himself in British affairs, who had views, and had an estimable domestic life, George III, meddled on the wrong side in almost every question, was undiscriminating in his choice of ministers, and became responsible for the loss of the American colonies. A 'dull lad brought up by narrow-minded people ... he was testy at the idea of all innovations, and suspicious of all innovators. He loved mediocrity'...the poet Beattie, not Goldsmith or Burke. Thackeray's lectures are just as one would expect from the author of Vanity Fair writing for an American audience he did not respect: Olympian in their dismissiveness, sense of irony and eye for the absurd detail; written with a due concern for public morality and a deference to the spirit of a more sober-minded mid-Victorian age, with the author occasionally (and as it were despite himself) rising to his subject in passages of eloquent pity.
The other essays in the book, also lectures on the leading comic and satiric writers of the Eighteenth century, both poets and novelists. fall into a genre of 'life-and-letters', and draw so heavily from memoirs and testimonials that the page often has less of Thackeray's commentary than the original source. He arraigns Sterne as indecent, commenting more sensitively that he made it his career as a man of feeling to draw out his genuine feeling, for his daughter, into an insincere profession of sentiment. He concern is not always for the quality of authors' writing--though Pope, the bitter Catholic hunchback, is a 'hero'--as with the writers' moral characters. Pope's circle--Swift; Bolingbroke, the Alcibiades of his age; the gallant Huntingdon; the estimable doctor Arbuthnot; the statesmen Walpole--stayed together, supposes Thackeray, in a state of intimacy some forty years, and were the most distinguished group of friends ever known.
The other essays in the book, also lectures on the leading comic and satiric writers of the Eighteenth century, both poets and novelists. fall into a genre of 'life-and-letters', and draw so heavily from memoirs and testimonials that the page often has less of Thackeray's commentary than the original source. He arraigns Sterne as indecent, commenting more sensitively that he made it his career as a man of feeling to draw out his genuine feeling, for his daughter, into an insincere profession of sentiment. He concern is not always for the quality of authors' writing--though Pope, the bitter Catholic hunchback, is a 'hero'--as with the writers' moral characters. Pope's circle--Swift; Bolingbroke, the Alcibiades of his age; the gallant Huntingdon; the estimable doctor Arbuthnot; the statesmen Walpole--stayed together, supposes Thackeray, in a state of intimacy some forty years, and were the most distinguished group of friends ever known.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews