Excerpt from The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. In 1837 Thackeray married Isabella Shawe (1818 the daughter of an Indian colonel. Three daughters were born, of whom the eldest became afterwards known as Miss Thackeray the novelist. An illness in 1840 affected Mrs. Thackeray's mind, and she never recovered. It became necessary for her to be placed under suitable guardianship, her children were sent away to their grandmother in Paris, and, Thackeray's home was for a time broken up. In 1840 appeared the Paris Sketch-book, a reprint of articles already published in various periodicals, and the next year saw another collection of Comic Tales and Sketches. About the same time his connection with Punch began, and much of his best work is to be found in the volumes of that paper. He was new struggling to gain a footing in literature, and chiefly by means of his contributions to Punch he was enabled to set up his home again and to bring back his children from Paris in 1846. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.