Barry Lyndon

Name: Barry Lyndon
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

by William Makepeace Thackeray

Pages: about 462
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 8.5 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 4.7 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

V.--IN WHICH BARRY TRIES TO REMOVE AS FAR FROM MILITARY GLORY AS POSSIBLE
XIV.--I RETURN TO IRELAND, AND EXHIBIT MY SPLENDOUR AND GENEROSITY IN THAT KINGDOM
XVI.--I PROVIDE NOBLY FOR MY FAMILY, AND ATTAIN THE HEIGHT OF MY (SEEMING) GOOD FORTUNE
Barry Lyndon--far from the best known, but by some critics acclaimed as the finest, of Thackeray’s works--appeared originally as a serial a few years before VANITY FAIR was written; yet it was not published in book form, and then not by itself, until after the publication of VANITY FAIR, PENDENNIS, ESMOND and THE NEWCOMES had placed its author in the forefront of the literary men of the day. So many years after the event we cannot help wondering why the story was not earlier put in book form; for in its delineation of the character of an adventurer it is as great as VANITY FAIR, while for the local colour of history, if I may put it so, it is no undistinguished precursor of ESMOND.
In the number of FRASER’S MAGAZINE for January 1844 appeared the first instalment of ‘THE LUCK OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ., A ROMANCE OF THE LAST CENTURY, by FitzBoodle,’ and the story continued to appear month by month--with the exception of October--up to the end of the year, when the concluding portion was signed ‘G. S. FitzBoodle.’ FITZBOODLE’S CONFESSIONS, it should be added, had appeared occasionally in the magazine during the years immediately precedent, so that the pseudonym was familiar to FRASER’S readers. The story was written, according to its author’s own words, ‘with a great deal of dulness, unwillingness and labour,’ and was evidently done as the instalments were required, for in August he wrote ‘read for “B. L.” all the morning at the club,’ and four days later of ‘“B. L.” lying like a nightmare on my mind.’

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Barry Lyndon

From the opening

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