Burlesques by William Makepeace Thackeray — Bibliomancer edition cover
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Fiction · 1869

Burlesques

William Makepeace Thackeray

Reading time
about 11.5 h
Length
155,822 words · 570 pages
Structure
81 chapters · 2 front-matter sections
Language
English
Era
Victorian

Thackeray's parodies, collected. "Novels by Eminent Hands" takes the best-selling novelists of the 1840s one at a time and writes a chapter of each as they would have written it — Bulwer-Lytton as "Sir E. L. B. L." in "George de Barnwell", Disraeli as "D. Shrewsberry" in "Codlingsby", Lever, G. P. R. James, Mrs Gore, and Fenimore Cooper in "The Stars and Stripes" — and closes with a straight-faced plan for a prize novel. Then "The Diary of C. Jeames de la Pluche", the footman who makes a fortune in the railway mania and writes it up in his own spelling; "Rebecca and Rowena", a sequel to Ivanhoe putting right what Scott got wrong; "The History of the Next French Revolution"; and "Cox's Diary".

The pieces appeared in Punch and Fraser's Magazine in the 1840s and were gathered into Thackeray's collected works. They are the sharpest criticism anyone wrote of the popular fiction of the decade, and they are written by a man who was about to compete with it.

This Bibliomancer edition presents the burlesques complete.

Contents

  1. Notes by Eminent Hands
  2. Epigraph
  3. George de Barnwell
  4. Vol I
  5. Noonday in Chepe
  6. Vol. II
  7. Chapter XXIV — Button’s in Pall Mall
  8. The Condemned Cell
  9. Codlingsby
  10. Chapter I
  11. Chapter II
  12. Chapter III
  13. Chapter XXIV
  14. A Tale of the Fighting Onety-Oneth
  15. Chapter I
  16. Chapter II
  17. Barbazure
  18. Chapter I
  19. Chapter II
  20. Chapter III
  21. By the Authoress of “Dukes and Dejeuners,” “Hearts and Diamonds,” “Marchionesses and Milliners,” Etc. Etc
  22. Chapter I
  23. Chapter II
  24. Chapter III
  25. Crinoline
  26. Chapter I
  27. Chapter II
  28. Chapter III — The Castle of the Island of Fogo
  29. The Author or “The Last of the Mulligans,” “Pilot,” Etc
  30. Chapter I
  31. Chapter II
  32. A Plan for a Prize Novel
  33. A Lucky Speculator
  34. A Letter from “Jeames, of Buckley Square.”
  35. The Diary
  36. Extrax:—
  37. Jeames on Time Bargings
  38. Jeames on the Gauge Question
  39. Mr. Jeames Again
  40. The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan
  41. Chapter I — “Truth Is Strange, Stranger Than Fiction.”
  42. Chapter II — Allyghur and Laswaree
  43. Chapter III
  44. Chapter IV — The Indian Camp—The Sortie from the Fort
  45. Chapter V — The Issue of My Interview with My Wife
  46. G. O’g. G., M. H. E. I. C. S., C. I. H. A
  47. Chapter VI — Famine in the Garrison
  48. Chapter VII — The Escape
  49. Chapter VIII — The Captive
  50. Chapter IX — Surprise of Futtyghur
  51. A Legend of the Rhine
  52. Chapter I — Sir Ludwig of Hombourg
  53. Chapter II — The Godesbergers
  54. Chapter III — The Festival
  55. Chapter IV — The Flight
  56. Chapter V — The Traitor’s Doom
  57. Chapter VI — The Confession
  58. Chapter VII — The Sentence
  59. Chapter VIII — The Childe of Godesberg
  60. Chapter IX — The Lady of Windeck
  61. Chapter X — The Battle of the Bowmen
  62. Chapter XI — The Martyr of Love
  63. Chapter XII — The Champion
  64. Chapter XIII — The Marriage
  65. A Romance Upon Romance
  66. Chapter I — The Overture.—Commencement of the Business
  67. Chapter II — The Last Days of the Lion
  68. Chapter III — St. George for England
  69. Chapter IV — Ivanhoe Redivivus
  70. Chapter V — Ivanhoe to the Rescue
  71. Chapter VI — Ivanhoe the Widower
  72. Chapter VII — The End of the Performance
  73. The History of the Next French Revolution
  74. Chapter I
  75. Chapter II — Henry V. And Napoleon III
  76. Chapter III — The Advance of the Pretenders.—Historical Review
  77. Chapter IV — The Battle of Rheims
  78. Chapter V — The Battle of Tours
  79. Chapter VI — The English Under Jenkins
  80. Chapter VII — The Leaguer of Paris
  81. Chapter VIII — The Battle of the Forts
  82. Chapter IX — Louis XVII
  83. The Announcement
  84. First Rout
  85. A Day with the Surrey Hounds
  86. The Finishing Touch
  87. A New Drop-Scene at the Opera
  88. Striking a Balance
  89. Down at Beulah
  90. A Tournament
  91. Over-Boarded and Under-Lodged
  92. Notice to Quit
  93. Law Life Assurance
  94. Family Bustle

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About this edition

The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.

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About the author

William Makepeace Thackeray

1811–1863 · Victorian

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) was born in Calcutta and sent to England at six; he gambled away much of an inheritance at Cambridge, then tried painting in Paris before turning to journalism, writing under various pseudonyms for Fraser's Magazine and Punch. Vanity Fair (1847–48), serialized without his name attached at first, made his reputation as Dickens's great rival; Pendennis, Henry Esmond and The Newcomes followed, but he never matched its scale again. He died suddenly in London at fifty-two.

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