Barry Lyndon

Redmond Barry, a poor young Irishman with a high opinion of himself, tells his own story, convinced that he is a gentleman and a hero. After a duel he flees his village, serves in the Seven Years' War first in the British army and then, against his will, in the Prussian one, deserts, becomes a card-sharper at the courts of Europe, and finally marries a rich, unhappy widow, the Countess of Lyndon, whose name he takes and whose fortune he squanders.

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) published the novel as a serial in 1844 and revised it later as The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon. Its comedy lies in the gap between how Barry sees himself and what the reader sees: a liar, a bully and a cheat. Stanley Kubrick filmed it in 1975. Thackeray's masterpiece is Vanity Fair.