| Timeline |
| 1811 |
Born 18 July in India (his father worked for the East India Co.) |
| 1816 |
Father dies |
| 1817 |
Sent to school (Chiswick Mall) in England, mother remarries (Captain Henry Carmichael-Smyth) |
| 1820 |
Mother and new husband return to England |
| 1822 |
Attends Charterhouse School at Smithfield (until 1828) |
| 1829 |
Enters Trinity College, Cambridge |
| 1830 |
Leaves Cambridge without a degree; travels on Continent, meets Goethe |
| 1831 |
Studies law at the Middle Temple, London |
| 1833 |
Buys the National Standard, which fails shortly |
| 1834 |
Studies art in Paris |
| 1836 |
Marries Isabella Shawe |
| 1837 |
Daughter Anne Isabella born, the Constitution collapses |
| 1840 |
Daughter Harriet Marian born; Isabella is committed to a mental institution where she remains for the rest of her life, two daughters live with his grandmother in Paris |
| 1842 |
Visits Ireland and stays with the novelist Lever |
| 1843 |
The Irish Sketchbook published |
| 1844 |
Travels in Far East |
| 1846 |
Daughters return to England to live with him |
| 1848 |
Book of Snobs and Vanity Fair published |
| 1850 |
Pendennis published |
| 1851 |
Deliveres a series of lectures, English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century |
| 1852 |
Tour of United States (lectures The English Humorists of the 18th Century), Henry Esmond published |
| 1853 |
Serial The Newcomes (through 1855) |
| 1855 |
Lectures in the United States, The Four Georges |
| 1857 |
The Virginians published (through 1859) |
| 1859 |
Starts Cornhill Magazine with George Smith |
| 1860 |
Lovel the Widower published |
| 1861 |
The Adventures of Philip published (through 1862) |
| 1863 |
Dies 24 December of a cerebral haemorrhage |
