The Fortunes
Written immediately after Vanity Fair, Pendennis has a similar atmosphere of brooding disillusion, tempered by the most jovial of wits. But here Thackeray plunders his own past to create the character of Pendennis and the world in which he lives: from miserable schoolboy to striving journalist, from carefree Oxbridge to the high (and low) life of London. The result is a superbly panoramic blend of people, action and background. The true ebb and flow of life is caught and the credibility of Pen, his worldly uncle, the Major, and many of the other characters, extends far beyond the pages of the novel. Held together by Thackeray's flowing, confident prose, with its conversational ease of tone, Pendennis is as rich a portrait of England in the 1830s and 40s as it is a thorough and thoroughly entertaining self-portrait.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about The Fortunes
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Peter Ho Davies tells four interlocking stories of Chinese American life, a young valet to railroad baron Charles Crocker, the silent-film star Anna May Wong, a witness to the killing of Vincent Chin in Detroit, and a couple adopting in modern China.
The most commonly searched The Fortunes is by Peter Ho Davies (2016), a literary novel structured as four interconnected novellas about Chinese American history. The metadata above lists Thackeray in error.
The Fortunes is structured as four novellas spanning over 150 years of Chinese American history. Peter Ho Davies calls it a novel. The four sections share thematic concerns rather than continuous plot.
The Fortunes is 744 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Fortunes takes most readers 11 to 16 hours to finish.
The Fortunes is a standalone novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, not part of a series.
The Fortunes is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.