Catherine by William Makepeace Thackeray Fiction Classics Literary

<p><strong>The author chose for the subject of his story a woman named Catherine Hayes who was burned at Tyburn in 1726 for the deliberate murder of her husband under very revolting circumstances.</strong> Mr. Thackeray's aim obviously was to describe the career of this wretched woman and her associates with such fidelity to truth as to exhibit the danger and folly of investing such persons with heroic and romantic qualities.</p>