Born in Calcutta, where his father was employed by the East India Company, he was sent to school in England, as was the fashion for colonial-born children. After unsuccessful essays of publishing sketches and running his own publications (Constitution) The History of Henry Esmond, The Newcombes, and Vanity Fair came out. Thackeray was continually ill with recurrent kidney infections caused by a bout with syphillis in his youth, and probably contaminated his own wife, who, over the time, fell victim in 1840 of mental illness and had to remain in one institution or another for the rest of her life.