Dr. Ray is a Fellow of the Foundation -- appointed thrice to assist his studies of William Makepeace Thackeray and of H. G. Wells -- and, before his appointment to the Foundation's executive staff, had been given our highest scholarly accolade, appointment to the Advisory Board.

Bal Keshav Thackeray (; born 23 January 1926 ), popularly known as Hindu Hriday Samraat Balasaheb Thackeray is an Indian politician, founder and chief of the Shiv Sena, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, and Marathi ethnocentric party active mainly in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

Shiv Sena ( Marathi: Śiv Senā, meaning Army of Shiv, also SS ), is a political organisation in India founded on 19 June 1966 by political cartoonist Bal Thackeray.

It is currently headed by Thackeray's son, Uddhav Thackeray.

In recent times, Thackeray does not concern himself with day-to-day activities of the party, which is run by his youngest son Uddhav Thackeray.

Also notable among the later novels is The History of Henry Esmond, in which Thackeray tried to write a novel in the style of the eighteenth century.

Thackeray is also British comedian Al Murray's great-great-great-grandfather.

During the Victorian era, Thackeray was ranked second only to Charles Dickens, but he is now much less read and is known almost exclusively for Vanity Fair.

2 Palace Green, a house built for Thackeray in the 1860s, is currently the permanent residence of the Israeli Embassy to the United Kingdom.

Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in 1847 – 48, satirizing society in early 19th-century Britain.

In the original illustrations, which were done by Thackeray, Becky is shown behind a curtain with a vial in her hand ; the picture is labelled " Becky's second appearance in the character of Clytemnestra " ( she had played Clytemnestra during charades at a party earlier in the book ).

The novel is considered a classic of English literature, though some critics claim that it has structural problems ; Thackeray sometimes lost track of the huge scope of his work, mixing up characters ' names and minor plot details.

Though Thackeray does not settle definitively whether Becky murders Jos, such a development is in keeping with the overall trend of character development in the novel.

Whether Thackeray intended this shift in tone when he began writing, or whether it developed over the course of the work's composition, is a question that cannot be settled.

'" Thackeray wrote about Tiny Tim, " There is not a reader in England but that little creature will be a bond of union between the author and him ; and he will say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, ' GOD BLESS HIM!

* Highbury is mentioned in Vanity Fair, the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray ; in chapter 4, the Sedleys are said to be going " to dine with Alderman Balls, at Highbury Barn.

The Luck of Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in serial form in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy.

The Newcomes is an novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in 1855.

Thackeray is the name of:

Upon his visit to Dublin in 1845, William Makepeace Thackeray observed: " The street is exceedingly broad and handsome ; the shops at the commencement, rich and spacious ; but in Upper Sackville Street, which closes with the pretty building and gardens of the Rotunda, the appearance of wealth begins to fade somewhat, and the houses look as if they had seen better days.

Raj Shrikant Thackeray () ( born 14 June 1968 ) is the founder and president of the right-wing Marathi ethnocentric regional political party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (" Maharashtra Reformation Army ") in the state of Maharashtra, India.

* 14 June-Raj Thackeray, founder and president of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

He was given this role in 2004, taking over from his father and party founder, Hindu nationalist politician Balasaheb Thackeray.

The Pall Mall Gazette took the name of a fictional newspaper conceived by William Makepeace Thackeray.

Thackeray began his professional career as a cartoonist with the English language daily the The Free Press Journal in Mumbai, but left it in 1960 to form his own political weekly Marmik.

His political philosophy was largely shaped by his father Keshav Sitaram Thackeray, a leading figure in the Samyukta Maharashtra movement ( United Maharashtra movement ), which advocated the creation of a separate linguistic state of Maharashtra.

In 1966, Thackeray formed the Shiv Sena party to advocate more strongly the place of Maharashtrians in Mumbai's political and professional landscape.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Thackeray built the party by forming temporary alliances with nearly all of Maharashtra's political parties.

A controversial figure, Thackeray has attracted significant attention by making statements expressing admiration for Hitler as an artist and demagogue, while condemning the Holocaust, inciting violence against Muslims, expressing support for the LTTE, and taking strong stances on the aspects of popular culture, including fervent opposition to the celebration of Valentine's Day.

He was born to Keshav Sitaram Thackeray ( also known as ' Prabodhankar ' Thackeray because of his articles in his fortnightly magazine named Prabodhan or ' Enlightenment ') Marathi family.

Keshav Thackeray was a progressive social activist and writer who was against caste biases and played a key role in the Samyukta Maharashtra Chalwal ( literally, United Maharashtra Movement ) in the 1950s to form the Marathi-speaking state of Maharashtra with Mumbai as its capital.

Bal Thackeray started his career as a cartoonist in the Free Press Journal in Mumbai.

During the tenure of the government from 1995 to 1999, Thackeray was nicknamed ' remote control ' since he played a major role in government policies and decisions from behind the scenes.

Bal Thackeray lost his wife Meena to a heart attack in September 1995, and his eldest son Bindumadhav (" Binda ") to a road accident on 20 April 1996.

On July 28, 1999 Bal Thackeray was banned from voting and contesting in any election for six years from December 11, 1999 till December 10, 2005 on the recommendations of the Election Commission.

One contemporary who tried to bridge the gap, William Makepeace Thackeray, established a tentative cordial relationship in the late 1840s only to see everything collapse when Disraeli took offence at a burlesque of him which Thackeray penned for Punch.

Disraeli took revenge in Endymion ( published in 1880 ), when he caricatured Thackeray as " St. Barbe ".

In view of the success of her novels, particularly Jane Eyre, Charlotte was persuaded by her publisher to visit London occasionally, where she revealed her true identity and began to move in a more exalted social circle, becoming friends with Harriet Martineau and Elizabeth Gaskell, and acquainted with William Makepeace Thackeray and G. H. Lewes.

Her reading matter included Tennyson, Wordsworth, Milton, Coleridge, Trollope, Thackeray and George Eliot.

He spent his time writing and in the company of other writers including William Thackeray and Douglas Jerrold.

William Makepeace Thackeray gave Vanity Fair the subtitle A Novel without a Hero.