The 18th century is the era of adventurers. In search of fortune and profit, they travel all over Europe - having no homeland, hiding their own identity under false names and titles, ready for anything.One of the rank and file in the army of seekers of Fortune's favor is the Irishman Redmond Barry. Unprincipled and frivolous, hard drinking and having the most vague idea of honor and decency, this cheerful merry fellow, nevertheless, again and again turns out to be much prettier than real aristocrats, into whose circle he so desperately seeks to break through ... Thackeray's literary debut - The Barry Lyndon Papers, published in 1844, had a difficult fate. Defeated by Victorian critics, who did not understand and did not accept Thackeray's elegant, caustic and witty stylization of the British "picaresque novel" of the 18th century, he was completely forgotten during the author's lifetime, but in the 20th century he gained well-deserved fame, entered the golden fund of the classics of world literature and lay down based on Stanley Kubrick's film masterpiece Barry Lyndon.