This is an introductory portrait of Thackeray the writer, focusing on his philosophy and religion, relations with women, his illustrations, his narrative strategies, and the demands his texts make on modern readers. Suggests themes and ways to read sample books rather than offering a comprehensive life or critical survey.

A Literary life of William Makepeace Thackeray offers a new perspective on the relation between Thackeray's life and his novels. It combines an analysis of his philosophy/religion with his life's experiences with women and acknowledgements of his dependence on writing for a livelihood to provide an explanation for his narrative strategies. Tracing Thackeray's composition and revision of sample passages demonstrates that these strategies were conscious developments. Thackeray's critique of the evils of society focused subtly on conventional domestic cruelties and on the inequities of the world of women, but he did so in a way that could be dismissed and would not necessarily alienate the public upon whose good will his livelihood depended.