Catherine: A Story, first appeared in serialized installments in Fraser's Magazine between May 1839 and February 1840. It was the first full-length work of fiction produced by William Makepeace Thackeray. Thackeray's original intention in writing it was to criticize the Newgate school of crime fiction, exemplified by Bulwer-Lytton and Harrison Ainsworth, whose works Thackeray felt glorified criminals.