WM Thackeray - Roundabout papers - 1879

William Makepeace Thackeray was a premier Victorian satirist and novelist, best known for his 1848 masterpiece Vanity Fair, which critiques Regency-era society through the lens of the ambitious Becky Sharp. Born in Calcutta and educated at Cambridge, he initially turned to journalism and sketching for Punch after losing his inheritance. His writing is distinguished by a cynical, realistic style that famously parodied the "snobs" of English high society, a term he helped define in his Book of Snobs.
Despite a tragic personal life involving his wife’s permanent institutionalization, he rose to become the first editor of the Cornhill Magazine and a celebrated public figure. His other significant works include the historical novel The History of Henry Esmond and the picaresque Barry Lyndon, which was later adapted by Stanley Kubrick.
Thackeray’s legacy rests on his sharp moral commentary and his refusal to create idealized heroes, positioning him as the primary literary rival to Charles Dickens. He died on Christmas Eve in 1863, leaving behind a body of work that remains a cornerstone of the English literary canon.

The 1879 edition is a classic "omnibus" collection of Thackeray’s shorter non-fiction, essays, and historical lectures. These works showcase Thackeray not as a novelist, but as a brilliant critic, historian, and conversational essayist.

Roundabout Papers
Originally published as a series in the Cornhill Magazine, these are considered some of the finest "familiar essays" in the English language. They are informal, whimsical, and reflective, covering everything from the taste of a good dinner to the nature of old age and the anxieties of authorship. They represent Thackeray at his most personal and charming, speaking directly to the reader.

The Four Georges & The English Humourists
These sections consist of lectures Thackeray delivered in the 1850s across England and the United States. In The Four Georges, he offers a scathing, gossipy, and highly opinionated look at the Hanoverian kings, focusing more on their personal characters and the "manners and morals" of their courts than on political history. The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century provides his critical perspective on literary predecessors like Swift, Addison, and Steele, revealing his deep reverence for the 18th-century style.


The Second Funeral of Napoleon
This unique addition is a journalistic account of the 1840 return of Napoleon’s remains from Saint Helena to Paris. Thackeray attended the event and wrote about it with his signature skepticism, stripping away the grand romanticism of the occasion to focus on the cold weather, the bored crowds, and the absurdity of the pomp. It wasn't a commercial success when first published in 1841 but remains a fascinating example of his early observational prose.


William Makepeace Thackeray
Roundabout papers ; The four Georges ; The English humourists ; to which is added The second funeral of Napoleon
Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1879
IX, [3], 632 pages, [1] leaf of plates : illustrations ; 19 cm.

Embossed leather binding. Covers showing some shelf wear, previous owner's bookplate, end papers faded, spotting on page edges.

PS: The book will be shipped carefully packaged in bubble wrap, via An Post, the Irish Postal Service ("Registered Post, Tracking & Insurance included to protect your valuable items"). Tracking number will be provided as soon as the book is dispatched.