Catherine

A Murderess Told Against the Fashion for Newgate Heroes

William Makepeace Thackeray, Nathaniel P. Ashcroft

• Publisher: Aeneas Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9785501366848
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Catherine Hayes, a servant girl, marries badly, poisons her way through it and is burnt at Tyburn — and Thackeray, sickened by novels that made criminals romantic, wrote her deliberately repellent to spoil the taste. Born in Calcutta and sent home at five, he lost his inheritance at cards and by then was writing for money; this 1839 serial is his attack on the Newgate novel, and his contempt keeps slipping into something like pity. Forty-three plates after Hogarth and Gainsborough, from a tavern night to a candlelit room, carry the low life and false glamour of the Newgate trade.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Catherine: A Story
• Chapter I. Introducing to the Reader the Chief Personage of This Narrative
• Chapter II. In Which Are Depicted the Pleasures of a Sentimental Attachment
• Chapter III. In Which a Narcotic Is Administered, and a Great Deal of Genteel Society Depicted
• Chapter IV. In Which Mrs. Catherine Becomes an Honest Woman Again
• Chapter V. Contains Mr. Brock’s Autobiography, and Other Matters
• Chapter VI. Adventures of the Ambassador, Mr. Macshane
• Chapter VII. Which Embraces a Period of Seven Years
• Chapter VIII. Enumerates the Accomplishments of Master Thomas Billings—Introduces Brock as Doctor Wood—And Announces the Execution of Ensign Macshane
• Chapter IX. Interview Between Count Galgenstein and Master Thomas Billings, When He Informs the Count of His Parentage
• Chapter X. Showing How Galgenstein and Mrs. Cat Recognise Each Other in Marylebone Gardens—And How the Count Drives Her Home in His Carriage
• Chapter XI. Of Some Domestic Quarrels, and the Consequence Thereof
• Chapter XII. Treats of Love, and Prepares for Death
• Chapter XIII. Being a Preparation for the End
• Chapter the Last
• Another Last Chapter
• About the Author