Literary Birthday – 18 July – William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray was born on 18 July 1811 and died on 24 December 1863.

William Makepeace Thackeray Quotes

1. Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.
2. The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.
3. You read the past in some old faces.
4. If a secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!
5. Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.
6. I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.
7. Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.
8. Bravery never goes out of fashion.
9. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.
10. There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write.

William Makepeace Thackeray was one of the leading English novelists of the nineteenth century. He is best known for his classic novel Vanity Fair, as well as The History of Henry Esmond, Esq and The Luck of Barry Lyndon. Thackeray wrote witty, satirical stories about the lives of the British middle and upper classes. His novels explore ambition, vanity, social status, and human weakness with memorable characters and sharp observations. During his lifetime, he was considered one of the few writers who could rival Charles Dickens in popularity and influence. In 1860, Thackeray became the editor of the newly established Cornhill Magazine, where he continued to shape Victorian literature.

Source for image: Jesse Harrison Whitehurst, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Makepeace_Thackeray_by_Jesse_Harrison_Whitehurst-crop.jpg

by Amanda Patterson
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