Pendennis: Volume II

by William Makepeace Thackeray

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Genres: Fiction

447 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1903

About the author

William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist, satirist, and journalist, best known for his keen social commentary and his novel Vanity Fair (1847–1848). His works often explored themes of ambition, hypocrisy, and the moral failings of British society, making him one of the most significant literary figures of the Victorian era.
Born in Calcutta, British India, he was sent to England for his education after his father’s death. He attended Charterhouse School, where he developed a distaste for the rigid school system, and later enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge. However, he left without earning a degree, instead traveling in Europe and pursuing artistic ambitions.
After losing much of his inheritance due to bad investments, Thackeray turned to writing for a living. He contributed satirical sketches, essays, and stories to periodicals such as Fraser’s Magazine and Punch, gradually building a reputation for his sharp wit and keen observational skills. His breakthrough came with Vanity Fair, a panoramic satire of English society that introduced the enduring character of Becky Sharp, a resourceful and amoral social climber.
Thackeray’s later novels, including Pendennis (1848–1850), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), and The Newcomes (1853–1855), continued to explore the lives of the English upper and middle classes, often focusing on the contrast between personal virtue and social ambition. His historical novel Henry Esmond was particularly praised for its detailed 18th-century setting and complex characterization.
In addition to his fiction, Thackeray was a noted public speaker and essayist, delivering lectures on the English humorists of the 18th century and on The Four Georges, a critical look at the British monarchy.
Despite his literary success, he lived with personal struggles, including the mental illness of his wife, Isabella, which deeply affected him. He remained devoted to his two daughters and was known for his kindness and generosity among his friends and colleagues.
His works remain widely read, appreciated for their incisive humor, rich characterizations, and unflinching critique of social pretensions.

Reviews

[Igenlode Wordsmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because I'd just been reading The Newcombes, which features Pendennis as a character and as the supposed first-person narrator of the later novel. Of course, that that pretty much deprived me of all suspense as to which young lady was his destined bride, whom Laura would end up marrying, the eventual course of his career, etc - and inadvertently starting off on Volume II of the set didn't improve matters in that respect either!

I have to say that I really wouldn't have recognised the Arthur Pendennis of this book in the person of the narrator of "The Newcombes" - he has no identifiable narrative voice in common between the two books - and, to be honest, I'm not sure I could distinguish him from Clive Newcombe, the protagonist of that novel, either. Neither of them are all that distinctive as characters, being pretty much stamped out of the standard mould of fresh-faced and manly (and infinitely respectful of the weaker sex) young heroes of 19th-century literature. As with Dickens, it tends to be the minor characters and/or the villains who are more interesting, although Laura is less generic than the average virtuous heroine because she is bright enough and strong minded enough to see through the self-deceptions of those around her, despite having grown up in an entirely sheltered existence.

There is a distinct satirical flavour to the novel, as with Thackeray's other work, which left me a little uncertain as to how much of the authorial moralising we are being intended to take literally, and how much is deliberate subversion; sometimes he addresses himself explicitly to the male reader and sometimes to the female reader, and I'm not sure we're necessarily expected to take that at face value. One feels that he is entirely capable of advocating a Jonathan Swift-style morality and expecting the reader to pick up on it!

The plot of the novel, such as it is, is basically the romantic misadventures of a young man with pretensions to gentility - sufficient for him to mix in London society for the narrator's purposes, but insufficient enough for the narrator to draw morals from the idle and indebted rich, and poke fun at the son of an apothecary passing as a landed gentleman. I didn't find Pen's ventures into romance all that enthralling, possibly because I already knew the outcome; one wonders how much of the sketches of the literary, legal and newspaper society of the era is autobiographical material. It's also interesting to watch the Victorians (who basically invented the concept of nostalgia and the historical novel) waxing romantic about the simple pleasures of an earlier (Regency) era - and salutary to remind us that the 18th and 19th centuries were not one long 'period' entity, but saw just as much massive social and industrial change as the 20th century, while seeing themselves as ultra-modern all the time!

[Meen]

I have both volumes, and both have horribly torn up spines.