Barry Lyndon

Told by the swaggering, self-justifying Redmond Barry himself, this picaresque tale follows an Irish adventurer who lies, duels, and gambles his way up the social ladder of eighteenth-century Europe. Barry serves in two armies during the Seven Years’ War, works as a card sharp, and finally traps a wealthy widow into marriage, only to run through her fortune and his own luck. Thackeray lets the rogue narrate his own life, so the reader has to work past Barry’s boasts to see the cruelty and folly underneath. First serialized in 1844, it is a cold, funny study of ambition without conscience, and it later gave Stanley Kubrick the material for his 1975 film. Free to read here as a PDF and EPUB edition.