Vanity Fair

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was a British author and novelist mostly known for his satirical works such as "Vanity Fair" that showed an ironic representation of the British society of those times. "The History of Pendennis" is a novel set in nineteenth-century England, mostly in London. The book tells the story of a young gentleman Arthur Pendennis from a countryside, who travels to London to find his place in society. In line with other Thackeray's works, the novel is a satiric...

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was a British author and novelist mostly known for his satirical works such as "Vanity Fair" that showed an ironic representation of the British society of those times. "The History of Pendennis" is a novel set in nineteenth-century England, mostly in London. The book tells the story of a young gentleman Arthur Pendennis from a countryside, who travels to London to find his place in society. In line with other Thackeray's works, the novel is a satiric...

A masterpiece of social satire, featuring one of literature’s best-loved characters, Becky Sharp.Ruthless social climber and irrepressible anti-hero Becky Sharp will do anything to raise her position in Society, from impoverished orphan to woman of means. Clever, lively and resourceful, Becky is the total opposite of her naive and sentimental schoolmate Amelia Sedley, a pampered yet good-natured girl from a wealthy family.As both women pursue love and life in London, against the background of...

With an Introduction and Notes by Owen Knowles, University of Hull Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven by acquisitive greed and soulless materialism, in which the narrator himself plays a brilliantly versatile role as a serio-comic observer. Although subtitled 'A Novel without a Hero', Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two contrasting but inter-linked lives: through the retiring Amelia Sedley and the brilliant Becky Sharp,...

The Penguin English Library Edition of Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 'Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?' 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...

Brilliant anti-heroine Becky Sharp will do anything to climb to society's loftiest heights and couldn't be more different from her rich, sweet-natured schoolmate, Amelia Sedley. Their parallel lives are marked by love, lust, marriage, fortune and loss, in all their different guises, as they navigate the corrupt circus of upper-class Regency England. Hailed as a literary masterpiece upon first publication, William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair has never waned in popularity and...