The History of Henry Esmond
William Makepeace Thackeray
 Using sporadically the first and third persons, Henry Esmond relates his own history in memoir fashion. The novel opens on Henry as a boy — the supposedly illegitimate (and eventually orphaned) son of Thomas, the third Viscount Castlewood, and cousin of the Jacobite fourth viscount, Francis, and his wife, the Lady Castlewood. These successors to the Castlewood estate and peerage, following the death of Henry's father, foster the boy, and he remains with them throughout his youth and early adulthood. As he comes of age he joins the unsuccessful campaign to restore James Francis Edward Stuart to the English throne, but eventually comes to accept the Protestant future of England. He falls in love with his cousin (daughter of his patron, Castlewood), Beatrix, but eventually marries his foster-mother (also his cousin, and Beatrix's mother), Rachel, Lady Castlewood. The novel closes on the couple's emigration to Virginia in 1718.