Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is a novel Thackeray that satirizes society in early 19th-century England. As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look out, quacks (Other quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind.

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

Vanity Fair shimmers with larger-than-life characters, devious plots and crossed wires. British novelist William Makepeace Thackeray paints his two leading ladies with exquisite sensitivity. We found ourselves cheering on the scheming, narcissistic Becky Sharp as she clambers up the rungs of London society, even as we commiserated with sweet, simple-minded Amelia Sedley, who descends just as quickly. From the bloody battlefields of Waterloo to bawdy London billiard halls, Thackeray conjures up a mind-blowing array of settings. With its entertaining glimpse into the theatrics of 19th-century society, it’s easy to see why Vanity Fair has inspired countless film and TV adaptations.

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