Today's reader may besurprised to learn that Vanity Fair (1847-48) was, in its time, a revolutionary novel.Almost as soon as Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and Lord Byron (1788-1824) had created a large middle-class readership for fiction and poetry, a burgeoning industry began churning out "Annuals," which were illustrated books of greeting-c.ard verse, as well as several species of formula fiction. In his earliest journalism,ten years before Vanity Fair, Thackeray had already taken potshots at one of th,ese cliche-ridden fictional species, the "Newgate novel" which constituted in its day a kind of "radical chic," melodramatically justify-Lag and aetherealizing criminal characters...

  A deliciously satirical attack on a money-mad society, Vanity Fair, which first appeared in 1847, is an immensely moral novel, and an immensely witty one. Called in its subtitle "A Novel Without a Hero," Vanity Fair has instead two heroines: the faithful, loyal Amelia Sedley and the beautiful and scheming social climber Becky Sharp. It also engages a huge cast of wonderful supporting characters as the novel spins from Miss Pinkerton"s academy for young ladies to affairs of love and war on the Continent to liaisons in the dazzling ballrooms of London. Thackeray"s forte is the bon mot and it is amply exercised in a novel filled with memorably wicked lines. Lengthy and leisurely in pace, the novel follows the adventures of Becky and Amelia as their fortunes rise and fall, creating a tale both picaresque and risque. Thackeray mercilessly skewers his society, especially the upper class, poking fun at their shallow values and pointedly jabbing at their hypocritical "morals." His weapons, however, are not fire and brimstone but an unerring eye for the absurd and a genius for observation of the foibles of his age. An enduring classic, this great novel is a brilliant study in duplicity and hypocrisy...and a mirror with which to view our own times.

INTRODUCTION

READING LIST        

BEFORE THE CURTAIN

CHISWICK MALL

IN WHICH MISS SHARP AND MISS SEDLEY PREPARE TO OPEN THE CAMPAIGN

REBECCA Is IN, PRESENCE OF THE ENEMY

THE GREEN SILK PURSE

DOBBIN OF OURS

VAUXHALL

CRAWLEY OF QUEEN"S CRAWLEY

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

FAMILY PORTRAITS

MISS SHARP BEGINS TO MAKE FRIENDS

ARCADIAN SIMPLICITY

QUITE A SENTIMENTAL CHAPTER

SENTIMENTAL AND OTHERWISE

MISS CRAWLEY AT HOME

IN WHICH REBECCA"S HUSBAND APPEARS FOR A SHORT TIME

THE LETTER ON THE PINCUSHION

How CAPTAIN DOBBIN BOUGHT A PIANO

WHO PLSYED ON THE PIANO CAPTAIN DOBBIN BOUGHT

Miss CRAWLEY AT NURSE

IN WHICH CAPTAIN DOBBIN ACTS AS THE MESSENGER OF HYMEN

A QUARREL ABOUT AN HEIRESS

A MARRIAGE AND PART OF A HONEYMOON

CAPTAIN DOBBIN PROCEEDS ON HIS CANVASS

IN WHICH MR. OSBORNE TARES DOWN THE FAMILY BIBLE

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