| 1811 | Born in Calcutta, India, the only son of Richmond Thackeray, an East India Company administrator, and Anne Becher Thackeray, the daughter of distinguished civil servants in India. |
| 1816 | Father dies, and WMT goes to England to live with his aunt, Mrs. Ritchie. His mother soon remarries. |
| 1817 | Attends school in Chiswick Mall; is unhappy there. |
| 1822-1828 | Attends Charterhouse School at Smithfield. |
| 1828 | Stepfather prepares him for entrance to Cambridge. |
| 1829-1830 | Enters Trinity College, Cambridge; leaves without a degree; travels on Continent; meets Goethe. |
| 1831-1833 | Studies law at Middle Temple, London, but gives it up when he inherits �20,000. Buys the National Standard, a newspaper, and goes to Paris as its correspondent; it fails. |
| 1834-1835 | Studies art in Paris and becomes a caricaturist. Contributes to Fraser's Magazine. |
| 1836 | Paris correspondent of stepfather's newspaper, The Constitutional. Marries a penniless Irish girl, Isabella Gethen Creagh Shawe, daughter of Colonel Matthew Shawe. Speculates and gambles away his inheritance. |
| 1837 | Hack writer in London; publishes in The Times, Fraser's Magazine, The New Monthly Magazine, and Punch. |
| 1840 | Thackeray's wife, who survives her husband by three decades, goes insane. His two daughters live with his grandmother in Paris. |
| 1842 | Visits Ireland and stays with the novelist Lever. |
| 1843 | Publishes The Irish Sketchbook, the first work to appear under his own name. |
| 1844 | Travels in Far East |
| 1846 | Publishes From Cornhill to Cairo. Establishes a home for his daughters, his grandmother, and himself at 13 Young Street in Kensington. Becomes emotionally attached to Cambridge friend's wife, Mrs. Henry Brookfield. |
| 1847-1848 | Serializes Vanity Fair (published 1848) |
| 1848 | Publishes The Book of Snobs, a collection of portraits that appeared in Punch. |
| 1848-1850 | Publishes The History of Pendennis. |
| 1851 | Ends relationship with Mrs. Brookfield at husband's insistence. |
| 1852 | Publishes The History of Henry Esmond. |
| 1852-1853 | Lecture tour of the United States on "The English Humorists of the 18th Century." |
| 1853-1855 | Publishes The Newcomes, a sequel to The History of Pendennis. |
| 1855- 1857 | Second U. S. lecture tour. Publishes The Rose and the Ring, his Christmas book, and Miscellanies, a four volume-collection of early writings. |
| 1857- 1862 | Publishes The Virginians, sequel to Henry Esmond; Publishes The Adventures of Philip on His Way Through the World, the last of his Arthur Pendennis trilogy; and Publishes Lovel the Widower. |
| 1861-1862 | Founds and edits the Cornhill Magazine. |
| 1863 | Dies on Christmas Eve in his new home at Palace Gardens of a cerebral hemorrage. Leaves an unfinished novel, Denis Duval. Buried at Kensal Green. |
This chronology is based in part on Karen Lawrence, Betsy Seifert, and Lois Ratner, The McGraw-Hill Guide to English Literature New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985. II, 195-97.
Last modified 2000