Product Description

No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles - military and domestic - are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44053 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 912 pages

About the Author
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was born and educated to be a gentleman but gambled away much of his fortune while at Cambridge. He trained as a lawyer before turning to journalism. He was a regular contributor to periodicals and magazines and Vanity Fair was serialised in Punch in 1847-8. John Carey is Professor of English at Oxford University. He has written on Dickens and Thackeray.

Customer Reviews

A classic, and rightly so!
Although I have 'known of' this book for over 20 years it wasn't until the age of 43 (i.e. now) that I finally got around to reading it. On the one hand, now that I have read it, I am sorry I didn't do so earlier. On the other hand, perhaps at a younger age I wouldn't have derived the same amount of pleasure? Whatever the case, I cannot say other than that this is a stunningly good book.

The most striking point to me was how little (if anything) has changed beyond the way we dress, eat, communicate etc. (in a word: outer appearances) since the 1840s when 'Vanity Fair' was written. Most of us (and I readily include myself) are still as anxious as then to be upwardly mobile in society, to be 'noticed', to belong to that select group of people enjoying high status (by the way, 'Status anxiety' by Alain De Botton is a sort of 'perfect companion' to Vanity Fair).

In itself, though there are dozens of secondary characters, the plot is simple, using two contrasting pairs: George Osborne, the archetypical cad, marries Amelia Sedley while, unbeknownst to him and her, his good friend William Dobbin is infatuated with Amelia. Meanwhile, the 'upstart' Becky Sharp marries Rawdon Crawley (dissolute son of a stingy Baronet) and starts clawing her way up to the best circles of London society. Whereas Amelia's fortune is definitely on the decline, Becky at first seems to succeed in her objective.

To me, the real 'hero' however of the book society at large such as Thackeray describes it ('dissects' would perhaps be a more apt term). At times with subtle irony, at times with scathing sarcasm he describes how crooked the accepted moral codes of the day were, how ruthless and ultimately futile this frantic struggle to get ever more money, fame, respect, ...

All in all a very illuminating book, as relevant today if not more than in the 1840s.

The forgotten classic
Vanity Fair is a novel which suffered greatly for the period in which it was released, though it is probably the only the novel that can challenge War and Peace. Thackery is by far one of the most under-rated authors not only of the time but also of all time: A Post-modernist before Modernism. It is a novel which takes a radical and lengthy habit which never seems to arrive at it's end point but leaves you exhausted from the journey.

There is an essence of Greek tragedy in the work and like all great tragedies leaves you wishing for a different ending. It has often been described as a "novel with an anonyms" protagonist but one whom you fall in love with: A book that defined an era of literature, which had not yet been conceived.