The Inheritance of Genius (Paperback)

John Aplin

ISBN 10: 0718892240 / ISBN 13: 9780718892241

Editore: James Clarke & Co Ltd, Cambridge, 2010

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Paperback. This book, the first of two volumes anticipating the bicentenary of the birth of William Makepeace Thackeray in 1811, details not only the author's life, but also the cosmopolitan and literary worlds inhabited by his two daughters, Minny and Annie. When Thackeray died in 1863, the two sisters were forced to find their own way forward. Minny would marry Leslie Stephen, later father of Virginia Woolf, and die at only thirty-five; Annie, encouraged in early years by her father, would herself emerge as a successful novelist, though one always living, albeit willingly, within her father's shadow. Drawing continuously on the letters, diaries, journals and notebooks of the Thackerays and their circle, Aplin sheds light on this remarkable man's family, and the effect that his life, death and legacy had on those closest to him. The book will appeal not just to those interested in Thackeray and the Victorians, but also to readers of biography, womenis studies and memoirs, and to followers of Viriginia Woolf and Bloomsbury. The first book of a major two-volume biographical study of the author William Makepeace Thackeray and his family, including new research that sheds light on the lives of his daughters Minny and Annie. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Codice articolo 9780718892241

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: The Inheritance of Genius (Paperback)
• Editore: James Clarke & Co Ltd, Cambridge
• Data di pubblicazione: 2010
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0718892240
• ISBN 13: 9780718892241
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: new

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

In his day, William Makepeace Thackeray was one of England's premier novelists, possessed of both great cultural insight and an incisive pen. With time, however, the man himself has fallen from view. Seen today only through the window of his fiction, the author of Vanity Fair is all too readily written off as just another figure amidst the club-centred, bachelor world of mid-Victorian England that fills his writings. Working with previously unpublished family letters, journals, notebooks and diaries, John Aplin seeks to reintroduce us to W.M. Thackeray as the paterfamilias of an intimate family circle of mother, wife and daughters that defined his life and fiction. Weaving his way through over a century of the Thackeray family, Aplin details not only the author's life, but devotes equal care to following his two daughters, Annie and Minny, who long remained at the centre of cosmopolitan and literary society. Following their father's death, Minny would marry Leslie Stephen, later father of Virginia Woolf, and die at only thirty-five; Annie, encouraged in early years by her father, would herself emerge as a successful novelist, though one always living, albeit willingly, within her father's shadow. Through its careful attention to their lives, this volume provides a unique account of Thackeray's women and their place in his life. From a mother too readily written off by history as religious fanatic, to a wife institutionalised for most of their marriage, to two adult daughters never far from their father's side, it is impossible to separate the writing from the life of the man behind them. Aplin presents the first wholly new reappraisal of Thackeray's life, writing, and legacy through the lens that truly defined him - his family.

Informazioni sull?autore

Formerly Head of the Department of Performing Arts at Brunel University, John Aplin has been pursuing independent and extensive research on the Thackeray family since 2001. In 2006, he published A True Affection: Anne Thackeray Ritchie and the Tennysons. The Inheritance of Genius will be followed by a second volume Memory and Legacy, to be published later in 2010 by The Lutterworth Press.