This is a domestic biography of the Thackeray family, placing the writer in the context of his home life. The story continues long after his death, to trace the later lives of his two daughters, Anne Isabella and Harriet Marian, and their marriages. His elder daughter Annie, in particular, took responsibility for guarding and shaping her father's legacy. The source material is not Thackeray's books so much as his own more intimate papers - his letters - and the correspondence and journals of his mother and daughters. The book will appeal not just to those interested in Thackeray and the Victorians, but to the general reader of biography, to those interested in womenis studies, life writing and to followers of the family of Virginia Woolf.