ABSTRACT
Born in Madras, India, the son of a surgeon with the East India Company, Thomas James Thackeray studied at Eton College and St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he earned an MB degree in 1820. Commissioned as ensign, in time he became a captain in the 2nd Somerset militia, retiring in 1855. In his 1832 essay “On Theatrical Emancipation, and the Rights of Dramatic Authors,” he compared the favorable copyright protection enjoyed by authors in Belgium and France with Britain’s largely unprotected writers. A nefarious villain drives the action in Thomas James Thackeray’s Penmark Abbey, which takes place in France around 1829. Penmark Abbey, in its delineation of character psychology, family bonds, and community economics, paints a world of complicated ethical decisions. Like many melodramas, Penmark Abbey explores the gendering of heroism, in two characters, Squirrel and Alice.
