Adventures of Major Gahagan

William Makepeace Thackeray's The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan (1838) is a satirical novel about Anglo-Indian culture and life. The main character and narrator, Major Gahagan, is serving in India with the British Army. The story tells his adventures and portrays the various battles in which he single-handedly fights against entire armies of rampaging natives and defeats, even killing one hundred and thirty four elephants with a single shot.

William Makepeace Thackeray, was an English author and wit, one of the most distinguished advocates of the 19th-century realistic novel, epitomized by his two renowned works, Vanity Fair (1848) and Henry Esmond (1852).

Thackeray was a son of a rich English merchant. He was educated in many different schools and Trinity College, Cambridge, but he did not complete his studies in his pursuits of a literary career.

He is particularly reminisced for his deftly witty and sardonic depictions of the middle and upper classes of his time.