Literature Network » William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair and vexation of spirit

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From: The Hudson Review
Date: 20020101
Author:Mullen, Alexandra

In 1854, the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, a literary lion in London after the successes of Vanity Fair and Pendennis, was enjoying a quiet vacation en famine in Rome where a convalescent young friend of the family needed entertaining. The tale that resulted, The Rose and the Ring, is one of Thackeray's most charming works, with one memorable creation: the Fairy Blackstick. Like your ordinary fairy, she used to turn "numberless wicked people into beasts, birds, milestones, clocks, pumps, bootjacks, umbrellas, or other absurd shapes" and give lovely gifts to her godchildren. But, being ...

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