Early on in his career, (while he was still writing for periodicals like Fraser's Magazine) William Makepeace Thackeray wrote under a variety of pseudonyms, including Charles James Yellowplush, Michael Angelo Titmarsh, and George Savage Fitz-Boodle. Which explains part of the title of this book and several others in Thackeray's oeuvre. But it doesn't explain Thackeray's wit, nor the sharpness the turns of phrase with which he needled nineteenth-century Britain. Thackeray went on to write such famous novels as Vanity Fair, Pendennis, The Newcomes, and The Adventures of Philip, but in many ways, his best is here in his early work.

Author Biography

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 - 1863) was a British novelist and author. He is known for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society. Thackeray began as a satirist and parodist, writing works that displayed a sneaking fondness for roguish upstarts such as Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair and the title characters of The Luck of Barry Lyndon and Catherine. In his earliest works, written under such pseudonyms as Charles James Yellowplush, Michael Angelo Titmarsh and George Savage Fitz-Boodle, he tended towards savagery in his attacks on high society, military prowess, the institution of marriage and hypocrisy.