The History Of Henry Esmond Illustrated

Author : William Makepeace William Makepeace Thackeray
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781520616254
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (162 download)

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Download or read book The History of Henry Esmond written by William Makepeace William Makepeace Thackeray and published by . This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Formatted for e-reader Illustrated About The History of Henry Esmond by William Makepeace Thackeray The History of Henry Esmond is a historical novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, originally published in 1852. The book tells the story of the early life of Henry Esmond, a colonel in the service of Queen Anne of England. A typical example of Victorian historical novels, Thackeray's work of historical fiction tells its tale against the backdrop of late 17th- and early 18th-century England - specifically, major events surrounding the English Restoration -- and utilises characters both real (but dramatised) and imagined. Plot: Using sporadically the first and third persons, Henry Esmond relates his own history in memoir fashion. The novel opens on Henry as a boy - the supposedly illegitimate (and eventually orphaned) son of Thomas, the third Viscount Castlewood, and cousin of the Jacobite fourth viscount, Francis, and his wife, the Lady Castlewood. These successors to the Castlewood estate and peerage, following the death of Henry's father, foster the boy, and he remains with them throughout his youth and early adulthood.A quiet, sober, hard-working youth, Henry is devoted to his foster family. Gentle, sensitive Lady Castlewood is his adored mother figure. Her husband is also kind to Esmond, but the hard-drinking viscount is clearly a man of limited intellect whose crude manners and thoughtless ways cause his wife a great deal of embarrassment and pain. Henry Esmond knows that his cousins--dull, good-natured Frank and sly, seductive Beatrix--will eventually inherit Castlewood. After the heartless Beatrix rejects his offer of marriage, he journeys to London to make his fortune. Esmond meets many of the celebrated English writers of the day, such as Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Addison and Steele are both represented as model English gentlemen, who gladly mentor Esmond in his literary career, while the equally noted Jonathan Swift is depicted in most unflattering terms as a hateful misanthrope and bully. Particular venom is directed at Swift for the abundant leisure he had at the vicarage in Trim, County Meath for cultivating his garden, making a canal (after the Dutch fashion of Moor Park), and planting willows.