William Makepeace Thackeray

Sickened by the popular novels that dressed up criminals as romantic heroes, William Makepeace Thackeray wrote Catherine to spoil the taste. Catherine Hayes, a servant girl, marries badly, poisons her way out, and burns at Tyburn - drawn as repellently as her author could manage, though his contempt keeps sliding into something like pity. His attack on the Newgate novel, and an early flash of the great satirist to come, this edition presents the complete and unabridged serial, newly typeset and illustrated with 37 full-page color plates, Hogarth among them.