A Shabby Genteel Story is an early and unfinished novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. It was first printed among other stories and sketches in his collection Miscellanies. A note in Miscellanies by Thackeray, dated 10 April 1857, describes it as "only the first part" of a longer story which was "interrupted at a sad period of the writer's own life" and never subsequently completed. He also describes it as being written "seventeen years ago", therefore c. 1840. This was the period when Thackeray's wife became mentally unstable, throwing his personal life into confusion.When he was preparing to publish the "Miscellanies" 17 years later, he thought for a moment of filling in what was missing, but even then he did not carry out his intention. "The memory of the past," he explained, "was awakened in him anew when he read the old papers again, and the sketch was best left in its original form." Perhaps it was to escape the sad impressions of his immediate environment that Thackeray went to Paris in December of the fateful year. His stay there was extended until the summer of the following year, and a series of new publications testified to the determination of the deeply shaken but strong, unbroken spirit to continue the work he had begun.