Country Life

Vanity Fair

EN route to start school in England in 1816—he was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) where his father held a high post in the East India Company—the five-year-old William Makepeace Thackeray’s journey was interrupted by a stopover at the island of St Helena. Here, Napoleon Bonaparte was in exile, and the fallen emperor was pointed out to the little boy,

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