By the age of twenty-one, William Makepeace Thackeray was living in semi-idleness in Paris, France, using the proceeds of an inheritance, but the money soon disappeared into bad business ventures, investments, and loans. He considered marrying for money, but when he met Isabella Shawe, who was also without money, he married for love. The wedding took place on 20 August 1836, and they settled into a little apartment in Paris while he earned money writing articles for papers – “writing for his life”, was how Thackeray phrased it.
In 1837 they returned to London, and it was there that their three daughters were born – Anne in 1837, Jane in 1838 (who died the following year), and Harriet in 1840. Thackeray adored his children and loved playing games with them. He was able to say in 1838 that he had been “nearly two years married and not a single unhappy day”. Tragically, that happiness was soon to disappear.
Isabella seems to have suffered from depression after Harriet’s birth, though that illness had no such name at the time. Her husband went off on a trip to Belgium to visit art galleries and when he came home, he was deeply worried about his wife’s fragile mental state. He took her to Ireland to see her mother and sister, and Isabella attempted to end her life by leaping into the sea. From then on, Thackeray tied himself to her by a ribbon so that if she got up at night he would know. He did not get on with his mother-in-law (his fiction depicts many interfering mothers-in-law), so when she told him to put Isabella into an asylum, he fled with his wife and the children to Paris.
Thackeray’s mother cared for the children from 1840 to 1845 at her home in Paris, while he took Isabella to clinics and doctors who might be able to help. By this time, it was clear there could be no cure so he took her to England and placed her in the care of a Mrs Bakewell in Camberwell. He visited, but the visits deeply upset him and as the years passed, he went less often. Isabella outlived her husband by thirty years and never regained her sanity. Because of his wife’s illness, Thackeray became a de facto widower, never establishing another permanent relationship although he did occasionally pursue other women.
Thackeray is known for his satirical works, particularly his 1848 novel Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of British society, and the 1844 novel Barry Lyndon, which was adapted for a 1975 film by Stanley Kubrick. He was a pleasant and modest man who was fond of good food and wine and openly took pleasure in the comforts of the society that he portrayed so critically in his novels. Thackeray died in December 1863.
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