This text offers a perspective on the relation between Thackeray’s life and his novels. It combines an analysis of his philosophy and religion with his life’s experiences with women and acknowledgements of his dependence on writing for a livelihood to provide an explanation for his narrative strategies. The book traces Thackeray’s composition and revision of sample passages to demonstrate that his narrative strategies were conscious developments. It also shows how Thackeray’s critique of the evils of society focused subtly on conventional domestic cruelties and on the inequities of the world of women, but in a way that could be dismissed and would not necessarily alienate the public upon whose good will his livelihood depended.