Thackeray himself, in the last instalment of the novel, has his narrator say that the newspapers, reporting on earlier instalments, had abused Catherine by calling it "one of the dullest, most vulgar and immoral works extant." In a private letter, Thackeray also said that the story was not well liked, though he also reported that Thomas Carlyle had said it was wonderful and that others had lauded it highly. Thackeray felt the result was a failure, and did not republish it in his lifetime. However, as he told his mother, Thackeray developed a "sneaking kindness" for his heroine, and the novel that was supposed to present criminals as totally vile, without any redeeming characteristics, instead made Catherine and her roguish companions seem rather appealing. He settled on Catherine Hayes, another eighteenth-century criminal, who was burned at the stake for murdering her husband in 1726. In contrast, Thackeray sought out a real-life criminal whom he could portray in as unflattering terms as possible. Īinsworth's Jack Sheppard portrayed a real-life prison breaker and thief from the eighteenth century in flattering terms. Thackeray even included Dickens in this criticism for his portrayal of the good-hearted streetwalker Nancy and the charming pickpocket, the Artful Dodger, in Oliver Twist.
Thackeray's original intention in writing it was to criticize the Newgate school of crime fiction, exemplified by Bulwer-Lytton and Harrison Ainsworth, whose works Thackeray felt glorified criminals. It first appeared in serialized instalments in Fraser's Magazine between May 1839 and February 1840, credited to "Ikey Solomons, Esq. For other novels, see Catherine (disambiguation) § Literature.Ĭatherine: A Story was the first full-length work of fiction produced by William Makepeace Thackeray.
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