Classic Books Store
Virginians
RRP: $10.00
Our Price:
You Save: $ 10.00 ( 100% )
Manufacturer: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray
Publisher: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price:
You Save: $ 10.00 ( 100% )
Manufacturer: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray
Publisher: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Average Customer Rating:
Experimental feature: Order Virginians from the UK, Canada, Germany or France by clicking an appropriate flag below.
Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.
Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.
Virginians Description
Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9789997409614
ISBN: 9997409612
Label: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Manufacturer: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Publication Date: 1957-06
Publisher: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Studio: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
EAN: 9789997409614
ISBN: 9997409612
Label: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Manufacturer: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Publication Date: 1957-06
Publisher: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Studio: J M Dent & Sons Ltd
Editorial Review of Virginians
Customer Reviews of Virginians
Customer Rating: 
Review Summary: A saga of two brothers
Review: _The Virginians_, a sequel to William M. Thackeray's _Henry Esmond_, is a fictional history of Henry Esmond's daughter, Madam Esmond of Castlewood estate in Virginia, and her twin sons, George and Henry (a/k/a Harry or Hal) Warrington. George, born a half hour before his brother Harry could not have been more different from his brother. George loved books and had a more earnest, serious and introspective disposition than the younger Harry, who loved sports, gambling (especially card playing) and had an out-going and fun loving nature. George was also a playwright, if not an altogether successful one. For a long while Harry is believed to be the soul surviving brother and heir to Castlewood, and is treated by everyone as such. For all their differences, no two brothers ever loved or were as devoted to one another more.
This long and sometimes meandering, but often energetically narrated novel, set both in England and in Virginia, recounts the brothers' relationships with their class-conscious British cousins, particularly Harry's with his cousins Maria, with whom he has dutifully promised to marry, and Will, as irrascible and unpleasant a man as one is likely to meet in a novel. The saintly Lambert family, who nurse Harry back to health after he falls from a horse become thereafter a very important part of Harry's life.
The French and Indian Wars in North America and the American Revolution form a critical backdrop in the novel and provide some of its most stirring scenes. George and Harry fight on opposite sides during the Revolution, with George taking the side of the Royalists loyal to King George III and Harry eventually becoming a general, serving alongside George Washington. Washington is presented up close and in person as never before seen in a novel, first as a young man and potential suitor to the brothers' widowed mother, and later as the mature commander-in-chief of the Continental Army of the new American Republic. While Madam Esmond is generally an unsympathetic and meddlesome woman, especially regarding potential marriages of her sons to women she finds unsuitable, she is undoubtedly courageous in her protection of Castlewood during the years of the Revolution, even as she maintains a staunch allegiance to the wrong side.
The novel I read is just one volume in a series of out-of-print novels by William Makepeace Thackeray. It may be difficult to find, but I recommend it highly to fans of the British Victorian novel genre. Written in the style of English typical of 18th and 19th century novels, the text is sometime difficult to follow, but I would suggest that the reader stay with it for its pleasures as fiction and for its educational value as an early history of America.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Final review: a mamooth entreprise...that paid off
Review: In a late Eighteenth Century setting, between fashionable London and backward Virginia, two twin brothers from the nobility spend their formative period trying to flee a domineering dowager mother in different ways - the older a saturnine, melancholy character, the younger an easy going type. Both, in their own way, succeed; but both reach old age feeling themselves equally swindled. The usual Thackeray touch of good humoured aristocratic melancholy aimed at bourgeois philisteism. A lot of good episodes also. Only, for XXIst. Century standards, enormouly long-winded and difficult to read from cover to cover. However, perservere, and you will find yourself rewarded as you finish.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: As always, lush- a by-review
Review: I've just begun reading "Virginians" and am in the middle of the chapeter where the two Esmond (or Warrington) brothers want to engage the young George Washington in a duel in order to prevent him from marrying their widowed mother, the unsufferable and domineering Rachel Warrington. After the subdued melancholy of a life ruled by unrequitted love in _Henry Esmond_ this one is full of bantering humour and as always Thackeray offers a lush and lusty, almost carnal prose. It's slow-going, of course, but is a book that as all good XIXth. Century novels demands the modern reader to stand fast and not let it go (I'm reading it partly at the gym, during ergometric bycicle spellls, so I must keep reading or face boredom). After you have clung to it, the book offers you all in the way of tasty morsels.
Review Summary: A saga of two brothers
Review: _The Virginians_, a sequel to William M. Thackeray's _Henry Esmond_, is a fictional history of Henry Esmond's daughter, Madam Esmond of Castlewood estate in Virginia, and her twin sons, George and Henry (a/k/a Harry or Hal) Warrington. George, born a half hour before his brother Harry could not have been more different from his brother. George loved books and had a more earnest, serious and introspective disposition than the younger Harry, who loved sports, gambling (especially card playing) and had an out-going and fun loving nature. George was also a playwright, if not an altogether successful one. For a long while Harry is believed to be the soul surviving brother and heir to Castlewood, and is treated by everyone as such. For all their differences, no two brothers ever loved or were as devoted to one another more.
This long and sometimes meandering, but often energetically narrated novel, set both in England and in Virginia, recounts the brothers' relationships with their class-conscious British cousins, particularly Harry's with his cousins Maria, with whom he has dutifully promised to marry, and Will, as irrascible and unpleasant a man as one is likely to meet in a novel. The saintly Lambert family, who nurse Harry back to health after he falls from a horse become thereafter a very important part of Harry's life.
The French and Indian Wars in North America and the American Revolution form a critical backdrop in the novel and provide some of its most stirring scenes. George and Harry fight on opposite sides during the Revolution, with George taking the side of the Royalists loyal to King George III and Harry eventually becoming a general, serving alongside George Washington. Washington is presented up close and in person as never before seen in a novel, first as a young man and potential suitor to the brothers' widowed mother, and later as the mature commander-in-chief of the Continental Army of the new American Republic. While Madam Esmond is generally an unsympathetic and meddlesome woman, especially regarding potential marriages of her sons to women she finds unsuitable, she is undoubtedly courageous in her protection of Castlewood during the years of the Revolution, even as she maintains a staunch allegiance to the wrong side.
The novel I read is just one volume in a series of out-of-print novels by William Makepeace Thackeray. It may be difficult to find, but I recommend it highly to fans of the British Victorian novel genre. Written in the style of English typical of 18th and 19th century novels, the text is sometime difficult to follow, but I would suggest that the reader stay with it for its pleasures as fiction and for its educational value as an early history of America.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Final review: a mamooth entreprise...that paid off
Review: In a late Eighteenth Century setting, between fashionable London and backward Virginia, two twin brothers from the nobility spend their formative period trying to flee a domineering dowager mother in different ways - the older a saturnine, melancholy character, the younger an easy going type. Both, in their own way, succeed; but both reach old age feeling themselves equally swindled. The usual Thackeray touch of good humoured aristocratic melancholy aimed at bourgeois philisteism. A lot of good episodes also. Only, for XXIst. Century standards, enormouly long-winded and difficult to read from cover to cover. However, perservere, and you will find yourself rewarded as you finish.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: As always, lush- a by-review
Review: I've just begun reading "Virginians" and am in the middle of the chapeter where the two Esmond (or Warrington) brothers want to engage the young George Washington in a duel in order to prevent him from marrying their widowed mother, the unsufferable and domineering Rachel Warrington. After the subdued melancholy of a life ruled by unrequitted love in _Henry Esmond_ this one is full of bantering humour and as always Thackeray offers a lush and lusty, almost carnal prose. It's slow-going, of course, but is a book that as all good XIXth. Century novels demands the modern reader to stand fast and not let it go (I'm reading it partly at the gym, during ergometric bycicle spellls, so I must keep reading or face boredom). After you have clung to it, the book offers you all in the way of tasty morsels.