The Book of Snobs

“Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of all…”



The Book of Snobs is a collection of satirical works by William Makepeace Thackeray first published in the magazine Punch. 


It reads like an amateur naturalist's field guide to the various species of Snob* that plagued England during the Victorian Era.


(* Someone who puts on airs and looks down on others.)


It displays Thackeray’s virtuosity with the assertion that 'Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science.'  


(Because the person has not yet been born who never felt that his or her way of doing things was better—and who hasn’t yet realized when to keep these feelings to himself.) 




WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863) was an 19th century English novelist famous for his brilliant satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a sardonic portrait of English society, and Barry Lyndon, a novel about a rascal’s rise and fall. Today he is esteemed by many as second only to Charles Dickens in his mastery of the modern novel.