William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta to a tax collector for the Board of Revenue in the Indian civil service and a young society beauty. Thackeray’s father died when he was four years old, and his mother immediately remarried to an old flame and an officer of the British military in India. At the age of six, Thackeray was sent to be educated in England and never returned to India.

Largely unsuccessful at Cambridge university, but a gentleman of handsome financial prospects, Thackeray was always drawn to writing and initially to the new media explosion of the day, magazines and newspapers. In 1832, he tried unsuccessfully to purchase a newspaper, and in 1833 bought a literary magazine, the National Standard which

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First published 28 October 2000

Citation: Pearson, Richard. "William Makepeace Thackeray". The Literary Encyclopedia. 28 October 2000.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4356, accessed 9 February 2010.]