Vanity Fair (Penguin Popular Classics) - Softcover

William M Thackeray

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140620850 ISBN 13: 9780140620856

Publisher: Penguin Popular Classics, 1994

Synopsis

"Vanity Fair", Thackeray's panoramic, satirical saga of corruption at all levels of English society, was published in 1847 but set during the Napoleonic Wars. It chronicles the lives of two women who could not be more different: Becky Sharp, an orphan whose only resources are her vast ambitions, her native wit, and her loose morals; and her schoolmate Amelia Sedley, a typically naive Victorian heroine, the pampered daughter of a wealthy family. Becky's fluctuating fortunes eventually bring her to an affair with Amelia's dissolute husband; when he is killed at Waterloo, Amelia and her child are left penniless, while Becky and her husband Rawdon Crawley rise in the world, managing to lead a high life in London solely on the basis of their shrewdness. The chapter entitled 'How to Live on Nothing' is a classic. Thackeray's subtitle, "A Novel Without a Hero", is understating the case; his view of humanity in this novel is distinctly bleak and deliberately antiheroic. Critics of the time misunderstood the book, decrying it as (among other things) vicious, vile, and odious. But "Vanity Fair" has endured as one of the great comic novels of all time, and a landmark in the history of realism in fiction.

About this title

Book Description

After first appearing as a serial in brilliant yellow covers, Vanity Fair, 'a novel without a hero', was published in full in 1848. A panoramic and biting satire, it was the first of William Makepeace Thackeray's works to bear his own name. This edition includes his original illustrations and preface.

From the Publisher

Vanity Fair is a story of two heroines--one humber, the other scheming and social climbing--who meet inboarding school and embark on markedly different lives. Amid the swirl of London's posh ballrooms and affairs of love and war, their fortunes rise and fall. Through it all, Thackeray lampoons the shallow values of his society, reserving the most pointed barbs for the upper crust. What results is a prescient look at the dogged pursuit of wealth and status--and the need for humility.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Popular Classics
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140620850
• ISBN 13: 9780140620856
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 688