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On Our Street
On Our Street
164 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2012
About the author
William Makepeace Thackeray
4,657 books1,460 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 - 1 of 1 review
March 31, 2023
Our Street is a series of sketches collected into his Christmas Books. They share a similar setting to other works of his by Samuel Titmarsh.
The book begins brilliantly, introducing by way of drawing Miss Clapperclaw, and giving us this wonderful line:
M. A. Titmarsh in this book is much more of a womanizer. He is commonly noting the beauty of the women around him, and he has seemingly had some feelings--viz., sexual feelings--for basically every young woman in the book.
Compared to the first of Thackeray's Christmas books, this one is magnificent. The jokes are better, the sketches more detailed and fun, and the whole of it more interesting. Thackeray does not go into the gentrification of the neighborhood he is describing (sadly), instead showing the poverty and the lower classes of people. For example, he notes that "our street" is filled with numerous children, only attended by priests and typhoid fever--and all of whom live in the alleys. Another instance would be his describe of a brief stint in which a prostitute, the "woman who nobody knows" (but which, of course, everybody visits), takes up residence. Miss Clapperclaw, the secondary narrator, hates this prostitute such to the point that our narrator thinks she wouldn't help her--or her children!!--out of boiling vinegar. Thackeray's narrator slyly gives no opinion.
Interestingly, we are described a man of politics, who allows his wife go out of doors--even with the door key, meaning, essentially, she has freedom at her leisure. Our narrator calls this "progress", far and above the main of England; it makes one think whether Thackeray was more feminist than one would expect from him.
Some of the caricature work is well done. Mr. Bragg, for example, is rather an interesting character. He puts his wife, Flora, down. If she talks too much or too little, he shall be at her; if she moves too fast or two little, ditto; and so on and so forth. She is entrapped because she married for money, probably at the request of her mother, and she intones with her eyes a desire to have married our narrator--who states merely that she had no money. In this way, Thackeray gives our narrator and our enemy (Mr. Bragg) quite strong and quite subtle characterization, for the narrator is "cynical" (the money), willing to tend favor to women but not to marry (a bachelor of all bachelors, he is always involved with the women), and sentimental (he calls Bragg a "brute"). In previous numbers, Titmarsh is much less of a person of his own. Although, perhaps his opinion that Mr. Bragg is only more venerated for being mean is misplaced.
This book is in some ways enigmatic. Thackeray desires, by the end, to show that we somehow are meant to think that all of the people within the small panorama he weaves are in their proper place. Yet, the "woman who nobody knows" is kicked from her home, and the Dixon family falls into significant debt. One cannot think but that this is unjust, that this is not wanted. How are we supposed to take this?
Speaking in terms of meaning, I don't quite know what Thackeray was aiming at. If he was merely desirous of giving us description, at this point we must think that he has done so; he is tranquilly described and given life to some people, somewhere. At the same time, however, we seem to wish to find more than this--but this more cannot be given by things like his desire (seemingly) to show that the people on "our street" desire their positions, unless he means this in a sense most remote: that, of course, they desire their positions by living them--they are social productions, fitting within the social fabric with which Titmarsh is engaged and observing, and thereby cannot but be what they are without leaving that fabric.
The book begins brilliantly, introducing by way of drawing Miss Clapperclaw, and giving us this wonderful line:
"We must begin our little descriptions where they say charity should begin—at home. Mrs. Cammysole, my landlady, will be rather surprised when she reads this, and finds that a good-natured tenant, who has never complained of her impositions for fifteen years, understands every one of her tricks, and treats them, not with anger, but with scorn—with silent scorn."
M. A. Titmarsh in this book is much more of a womanizer. He is commonly noting the beauty of the women around him, and he has seemingly had some feelings--viz., sexual feelings--for basically every young woman in the book.
Compared to the first of Thackeray's Christmas books, this one is magnificent. The jokes are better, the sketches more detailed and fun, and the whole of it more interesting. Thackeray does not go into the gentrification of the neighborhood he is describing (sadly), instead showing the poverty and the lower classes of people. For example, he notes that "our street" is filled with numerous children, only attended by priests and typhoid fever--and all of whom live in the alleys. Another instance would be his describe of a brief stint in which a prostitute, the "woman who nobody knows" (but which, of course, everybody visits), takes up residence. Miss Clapperclaw, the secondary narrator, hates this prostitute such to the point that our narrator thinks she wouldn't help her--or her children!!--out of boiling vinegar. Thackeray's narrator slyly gives no opinion.
Interestingly, we are described a man of politics, who allows his wife go out of doors--even with the door key, meaning, essentially, she has freedom at her leisure. Our narrator calls this "progress", far and above the main of England; it makes one think whether Thackeray was more feminist than one would expect from him.
Some of the caricature work is well done. Mr. Bragg, for example, is rather an interesting character. He puts his wife, Flora, down. If she talks too much or too little, he shall be at her; if she moves too fast or two little, ditto; and so on and so forth. She is entrapped because she married for money, probably at the request of her mother, and she intones with her eyes a desire to have married our narrator--who states merely that she had no money. In this way, Thackeray gives our narrator and our enemy (Mr. Bragg) quite strong and quite subtle characterization, for the narrator is "cynical" (the money), willing to tend favor to women but not to marry (a bachelor of all bachelors, he is always involved with the women), and sentimental (he calls Bragg a "brute"). In previous numbers, Titmarsh is much less of a person of his own. Although, perhaps his opinion that Mr. Bragg is only more venerated for being mean is misplaced.
This book is in some ways enigmatic. Thackeray desires, by the end, to show that we somehow are meant to think that all of the people within the small panorama he weaves are in their proper place. Yet, the "woman who nobody knows" is kicked from her home, and the Dixon family falls into significant debt. One cannot think but that this is unjust, that this is not wanted. How are we supposed to take this?
Speaking in terms of meaning, I don't quite know what Thackeray was aiming at. If he was merely desirous of giving us description, at this point we must think that he has done so; he is tranquilly described and given life to some people, somewhere. At the same time, however, we seem to wish to find more than this--but this more cannot be given by things like his desire (seemingly) to show that the people on "our street" desire their positions, unless he means this in a sense most remote: that, of course, they desire their positions by living them--they are social productions, fitting within the social fabric with which Titmarsh is engaged and observing, and thereby cannot but be what they are without leaving that fabric.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review