Vanity Fair

By William Makepeace Thackeray

Thackeray's best-known novel.According to Wikipedia: "Thackeray is most often compared to one other great novelist of Victorian literature, Charles Dickens. During the Victorian era, he was ranked second only to Dickens, but he is now much less read and is known almost exclusively for Vanity Fair. In that novel he was able to satirize whole swaths of humanity while retaining a light touch. It also features his most memorable character, the engagingly roguish Becky Sharp. As a result, unlike Thackeray's other novels, it remains popular with the general reading public; it is a standard fixture in university courses and has been repeatedly adapted for movies and television. In Thackeray's own day, some commentators, such as Anthony Trollope, ranked his History of Henry Esmond as his greatest work, perhaps because it expressed Victorian values of duty and earnestness, as did some of his other later novels. It is perhaps for this reason that they have not survived as well as Vanity Fair, which satirizes those values."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seltzer Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781455388417

William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) was a multitalented writer and illustrator born in British India. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where some of his earliest writings appeared in university periodicals. As a young adult he encountered various financial issues including the failure of two newspapers. It wasn’t until his marriage in 1836 that he found direction in both his life and career. Thackeray regularly contributed to Fraser's Magazine, where he debuted a serialized version of one of his most popular novels, The Luck of Barry Lyndon. He spent his decades-long career writing novels, satirical sketches and art criticism.

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Reviews for Vanity Fair

[wrightja2000 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wonder if anyone who works for the magazine Vanity Fair has ever read the book. I would think that if they had, they wouldn't call it Vanity Fair because Thackeray was (very effectively in my opinion) making fun of the kind of people who live that type of life style.

(Maybe someday I'll write more of a review but wanted to get that idea down.)

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

When I was in junior high school (The Age of the Dinosaurs), I read “Gone with the Wind” for the first time, and was raving about Scarlett O’Hara to an English teacher I greatly admired. She said Scarlett was but a poor imitation of The Original Anti-Heroine, Becky Sharp, and if I wanted the real thing, I should read “Vanity Fair”.

I believe I may have attempted to do so, and gave up fairly quickly. Five decades have now passed, and I actually read Mr. Thackeray’s classic this month.

Well, I read about 75% of it. Toward the end there, when Thackeray’s wordiness overwhelmed me and all I wanted to do was to finish the d*d thing, I admit to skimming his incredibly wordy, repetitive, and dull lists of who was at which party and what their ancestry was and how their great-grandfather cheated somebody else’s great-grandfather out of the ancestral manse, etc etc etc…… (The work originally appeared in serialization, and Thackeray may have been paid by the word. That would certainly explain much of his meandering.)

Mark Twain said that a classic is “something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” He may well have been talking about “Vanity Fair”.

Lord love a duck, it’s dreary. Though sometimes considered the "principal founder" of the Victorian domestic novel, it is terribly dated. And it’s very much a novel of its time, repeatedly reminding the reader of the delicacy of womankind, bless her kind little heart and dull little intellect. Amelia Sedley, the literary foremother of Melanie Hamilton is so sappy that the modern reader really, really wants to smack her upside the head. Her frenemy Becky Sharp is certainly manipulative, avaricious, duplicitous, and all the negative things Scarlett O’Hara also represented, but without Scarlett’s stubborn resourcefulness or passionate tango with the dashing Rhett Butler.

"Vanity Fair" also presents itself as a biting indictment of the falseness of British society in the 19th century, with its emphasis on titles, elaborate social codes, and fascination with wealth and status. Unfortunately, the humor doesn’t age well, either, as much of it (as with any satirical work) depends on the reader’s familiarity with the milieu it skewers.

Sprinkled with phrases in French, German, Latin, and Greek, and full of now-archaic language, the modern reader will need a very comprehensive dictionary at hand, as well as a phrase book of the common non-English terms with which the text is ornamented. Thackeray’s tendency to step back and address the reader directly is yet another stylistic choice which (fortunately) largely disappeared along about the middle of the 20th century.

All in all, reading "Vanity Fair" may itself be an exercise in vanity for the modern reader, who can now say “I’ve read it.” The same reader would probably be stretching the boundaries of truth to say “I enjoyed it.”

The convoluted plot involves the interplay among Rebecca (Becky) Sharp, Amelia (Emmy) Sedley, and begins as the girls leave finishing school. Becky, the orphaned daughter of an itinerant portrait-painter and a French dancing girl, is in line to begin a position as governess in a baronet's household, but plans a brief visit with her school friend Emmy, first. Emmy’s family is well-off, her father doing something that apparently involves stocks or banking or somesuch. (He makes money. ‘Nuff said.) Becky hopes to leverage this visit into a marriage with Emmy’s elder brother Joseph, a sadly ridiculous figure, pompous, self-important, and dim, but nevertheless the heir to Sedley’s estate. Emmy’s marriage prospects are fixed on George Osborne, the son of her father’s business partner and a foppish young man without much moral character, though he looks quite dashing in his military uniform. Emmy is too dim (and well-bred) to see the emptiness behind George’s pretty face. (Apparently, dimness runs rampant in the Sedley genes.)

The Becky/Joseph pairing never gets off the ground and Becky goes off to her governess position at roughly the same time Emma’s father is cheated out of his business share by George’s father. The young sweethearts, in defiance of the elder Osborne’s command, run off and are married, laughing gaily at the old man’s obdurate insistence that he will disown George, which he does. Becky, meantime, has now set her lacy cap at one Rawdon Crawley, the second son of her baronet employer. Rawdon is also a military man, and while the title will never be his, he is the favorite of a wealthy spinster aunt, thus making him prime marriage material in Becky’s eyes. It’s all very gay (except that George is already beginning to letch for Becky) and the two newlywed couples, accompanied by Osborne’s good buddy William Dobbins, are having a gay old time until Napoleon Bonaparte escapes his exile and once again begins ravaging across Europe and – dash it all – the young soldiers are actually expected to take up arms, leaving their pregnant brides after a bare six weeks of marital bliss.

George is inconsiderate enough to die at Waterloo, leaving Emma the bereaved widow, doting on the son born after his father’s death, and eking out a living by moving in with her also-impoverished parents. Dobbins, who has loved her all along, does The Honorable Thing, and she spurns him, preferring the untarnished (and highly embroidered) memory of George, so William is forced to sneakily provide a small living for Emma and the baby. Becky’s husband fares better, but the avaricious little imp, attempting to worm her way into the graces of the Rich Old Spinster Aunt, manages to piss off the old broad so thoroughly that she leaves all her money elsewhere. This is highly inconvenient to Becky, whose husband has left the military and supports them with his gambling skills which, alas, are not consistent, and the young couple learns how to Live Well on Nothing, mostly by sponging off friends and stiffing the various landlords, grocers, and milliners who provide them with their surface prosperity.

This state of affairs goes on for about 600 pages, with Emma being poor but gracious and Becky being sinful and scheming until she is caught en flagrante (or as close to en flagrante as the literary conventions of the day will allow) with one of her wealthy “sponsors”, and her husband kicks her out and goes off to be the governor of some miserable tropical locale. Emma feels sorry for her and believes Becky's edited version of events in which she is the totally innocent victim. It seems that Becky may yet rise from the ashes, but – worse luck! – Emma discovers what a rotter George really was and how close he came to running off with her friend. Eventually, the faithful devotion of Dobbin makes an impression on her, and they are married to live happily ever after while Becky sinks irretrievably into sin. Not to worry, though – her husband eventually dies and leaves her a small pension. We assume she toddles off into old age with a dashing young buck on each arm, and the exhausted reader finally shuts the cover of this massive and overwrought tome.

If you’re really interested in more, there’s a movie. Reese Witherspoon is in it. It’s three bucks (used) on eBay.

[patsymurray · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Droll, satirical take on human nature and just as relevant today as it was in the Victorian Age.

[sprainedbrain · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Long and sprawling, witty and satirical, this is quite a character study. I think I recognized someone I know in real life in each and every one of the main characters. A novel without a hero, you say, Mr. Thackeray? Then please explain Dobbin! :)

[browner56 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In discussing the origins of The Bonfire of the Vanities, his brilliant satire of the social and economic mores of New York City in the 1980s, Tom Wolfe was always quick to cite Thackeray’s Vanity Fair as his inspiration. Wolfe seemed particularly taken with that earlier work’s subtitle--A Novel Without a Hero--which he took to be a perfect characterization for the story that he himself wanted to tell. He even went so far as to arrange to have his work published in serial form in a magazine (Rolling Stone in Wolfe’s case), just as Thackeray did with his magnum opus a century and a half before. There can hardly be higher praise than that for one author to give to another.Vanity Fair itself owes a considerable debt to a classic work that preceded it by 150 years, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. In that religious allegory, a person on the path to Heaven first had to pass through the town of Vanity in which there was a fair that appealed to all the basest traits of humanity: greed, infidelity, deceit, avarice, envy, duplicity, and so on. Thackeray saw this as an apt metaphor for his story of the state of English society at the time of the Napoleonic Wars and the dawn of the Victorian Age. In fact, the frame that begins and ends Vanity Fair has two young girls putting on a puppet show during which all of the action in the book takes place. Toward the end of the novel, the author even reveals himself to be the narrator of the tale, and a most unreliable one at that.If that level of historical detail is not absolutely necessary to summarize Vanity Fair, it is perhaps useful context for a prospective reader to understand what taking on this tome will entail. Because, make no mistake, this book requires a significant investment of time and attention to get through it to the end. It is indeed a meandering and occasionally sprawling tale, written in the style of a time far removed from what the modern audience is used to. But, it is also remarkably observant about the human condition as well as wickedly funny; those two things alone make reading it today well worthwhile. Further, in the character of Becky Sharp, Thackeray has created an anti-heroine for the ages—with her resilient and scheming nature, she could hold her own now just as well as she did back then.How the specific events in the story transpire is not the most important thing about the novel, serving as they do as the backdrop for the societal skewering that was the author’s true purpose. In short, Becky comes from an impoverished background in a culture where that is a serious impediment to advancement. Her school friend Amelia Sedley is from a well-to-do family, but she herself is a rather simple and unambitious girl. Both of these friends enter into disappointing marriages, Becky to a rich but rough-hewn fellow whose family disapproves of her while Amelia devotes herself to a philandering cad and ignores the less-dashing colleague who truly loves her. When Amelia’s family falls on hard economic times, it sets off chain of events that takes several hundred pages to unfold. In those pages, though, there is some real literary gold as Thackeray uses his razor-honed wit and gentle word play to expose a multitude of vanities and foibles as he saw them. I certainly can recommend this book, but only for those who understand what they are getting into first!

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thackeray's novel without a hero, a story of the manners and morality of society in the years around the Battle of Waterloo, is a respected and admired classic, and also - perhaps more importantly - a document of the time. Like the other writers of his period, Thackeray is more than happy to digress, to follow a tangent away from his story to describe a time or place, and like Hugo's 'Les Miserables' it is in these digressions that the most interesting details emerge.

[safarr_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although this novel is coralled into the category of "classic" that desuades so many from reading a book it is well worth the time. It exposes the effects of manipulation and greediness, and it shows that people will ultimately get what they deserve. Although the characters inhabit a time apart from ours, they may as well be living in current times. Readers should be able to relate easily to this book.

[john257hopper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

After nearly three weeks, I have finished this mammoth satirical novel of late Georgian life, after watching the excellent ITV adaptation. Despite some rambling chapters, especially in the middle, this is a brilliant satire of life in that era, covering a whole range of human emotions and weaknesses, with some great characters. Becky Sharp is one of the most manipulative characters in 19th century fiction, but it is easy to see why she fools so many people. Amelia Sedley is much more of a stereotypical passive Victorian young lady, but still has interesting facets that lift her above similar characters in other 19th century novels. George Osborne is fairly shallow, but dies half way through the novel, so it is his memory that is a character, at least for Amelia, for the remainder of the story. Rawdon Crawley, who marries Becky, is also fairly shallow, but elicits more sympathy, not least due to his genuine affection for their son, a trait that Becky entirely, and cruelly, lacks. There are many interesting minor characters (though I do get rather confused by the various generations of the Crawley family - a family tree would be useful). My edition contained the wonderful original illustrations by the author, which were often very amusing, especially the supercilious expression on Becky's face each time she is depicted. Each of the 67 chapters was also headed by an illustration around the initial capital in the style of a Medieval manuscript - these often seemed to have little or no connection to the story, but were a nice and amusing addition. Overall a brilliant novel.

[littlegeek_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant, snarky, hilarious.

[lyzadanger · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel is for the committed: committed to its 800 pages, committed to referencing endnotes and looking things up, and committed to piecing together the plot arcs and disparate characters of this tour de force.This tome is heavy on the vernacular: I advise reading an edition with copious foot- or end-notes. Translation is necessary for many contemporary references. Who knew there were so many hundreds of kinds of carriages? Some of the elements are timeless: jealousy, vanity, gallantry, pining love. These ride under an unremitting setting of high English fashion and society that seems not quaint and historical but monstrous and disorienting. At times this book is a blatant page-turner, in a soap opera titillating way. At other times it's a chore to push through pages of intricate detail about the fabric of mid-19th-century life.For every literary or satirical reference you get, there are bound to be a dozen you miss (unless your area of expertise is the Victorian novel, perhaps). In retrospect, I feel like I would have needed a full lecture series or course to understand the full breadth of this work.

[wassilissa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thackeray schildert am Beispiel einiger Personen des viktorianischen Englands die Abgründe und Eitelkeiten jener Zeit. Es geht um mehr Schein als Sein. Dargestellt werden vor allem Personen, die den eigenen Vorteil suchen. Das Buch ist witzig und ausgesprochen gut beobachtet, ein tolles Zeitdokument. Es liest sich leichter als Dickens, finde ich. Allerdings ist das Buch etwa sehr lang, es könnte etwas gestraffter werden. Es empfiehlt sich aber nicht das Ende auszulassen, da es doch noch einige Überraschungen bietet. Und wirklich böse sein kann man niemandem auf dem Jahrmarkt der Eitelkeiten.

[thatotter-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't love Thackeray's chattiness and tendency to harangue the reader about "Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair!" And I didn't love how the characters' signature traits grew more and more extreme until it was difficult to like or sympathize with them. And it was way too long. Despite these quibbles, I did enjoy it.

[alcracka · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Vanity Fair is sometimes called the best British novel ever written, but it's totally not. Middlemarch is way better. Honestly, VF's not even in the top ten. So why do people love it so much? Because of Becky Sharp. Which is funny, because she's not what it was supposed to be about.

Becky Sharp is to Thackeray as Satan is to Milton. The argument has been made in both cases that the author secretly intended us to love their most memorable characters, but that's not true - or at least it's not that easy. While both dominate their stories, both authors are clearly uncomfortable with the fact that that's happened.

Vanity Fair didn't really take shape until Thackeray turned it into an autobiography: the Amelia / Dobbins story, which he thought of after he'd submitted the first few chapters and which caused an eight-month delay while he reconfigured the story, mirrors his own one-sided love affair with his friend's wife. Dobbins is based on himself. And certainly their story turns out to be an important counterweight to Becky's; without it, the novel would be a slighter work about a femme fatale, arguably more fun but less important. With them it turns into a sprawling landmark in realist literature, one that unarguably influenced War & Peace.

But Amelia and Dobbins are such milquetoasts that Becky insists on running away with the book. They're nice people, and you root for them, but during their chapters...you wish it would get back to Amelia's frenemy.

And Thackeray attacks Becky, again and again, viciously. His most telling attack is in her constantly reiterated failure to love her son, which is a mortal sin in Victorian novels as it is in the rest of them. A father can occasionally be forgiven for not loving his children; never a mother. But there's also this deadly passage toward the end of the novel, in which he defensively compares her to the old-school, evil mermaid:"Has [the author] once forgotten the rules of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail above water? No! Those who like may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling around corpses, but above the waterline, I ask, has not everything been proper?"It frankly feels like Thackeray is punishing Becky for taking over the book that he'd tried to take over himself. He sounds confused: like he wishes the whole novel was a moral one, and realizes only now that it's failed to be that. (Remember, this book couldn't be retooled; it was released in installments, and everyone had already read the rest of them.)

Consider also the ending. Becky has a moment of magnanimity and reconciles Dobbins and Amelia. Then she turns around and murders Jos. (Don't try to argue that she didn't murder him. Thackeray may not say it, but he leaves little doubt.) Which feels more honest to you? Which feels like something Becky would do? She's a calculating, immoral woman who may have been (but probably wasn't) involved in countless affairs by this time, but did you get the sense that she's a murderess? Thackeray's book has gotten away from him, and he's betraying her in an attempt to snatch it back.

Compare this with Middlemarch, also a landmark realist novel, and also one released in installments, but one in which it's perfectly clear that Eliot had the entire plot, thread by thread, perfectly planned from the beginning. Eliot never lets her book get away from her. And when I say that, and when you consider the fact that Middlemarch includes no character as compelling as Becky Sharp - she would have despised Dorothea - it sounds like Vanity Fair might be more fun than Middlemarch, but it's not. Thackeray's sense of human nature isn't as strong as Eliot's (or as Tolstoy's), and the novel isn't as satisfying.

It's good, because Becky Sharp escaped from somewhere in Thackeray's brain and took it from him. What doesn't belong to her is just okay.

[stouthearted_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This lengthy novel at times tries the reader's patience, but the firey Becky Sharp commands attention to the end.School chums Amanda Sedley and Becky Sharp come from two different backgrounds: the former from privelege, the latter from poverty thanks to a starving artist father. Amanda is meek while Becky is cunning, and the novel depicts how these two different personalities make their way through life. Amanda falls in love with Osbourne, a handsome scoundrel whose father ruined the Sedleys financially. Becky takes her place befitting her station as a servant in the Crawley household, but is determined to make it to the top any way she can. Her main weapon is flirtation and deceit, and many men are ruined in her wake. Even Osbourne, who sees through Becky, eventually makes himself a fool over her. Amanda remains blindly devoted to her husband while she, meanwhile, is blindly devoted to by Osbourne's fellow soldier Dobbin, a man who is strong when it comes to the military, but an absolute pushover when it comes to Amanda. Becky Sharp remains one of the most dynamic characters in English literature. Even if her fellow characters were not so weak-willed and wishy-washy, she still would be a force to be reckoned with. Little shames her except the sting of poverty. She's unfaithful, deceitful, and cruel to those who love her, even her own son. She's played the survivor's game for so long that, to the end, Becky Sharp remains her first priority. She's been thrown off the top of the world so many times that you know she always has a trick up her sleeve, a new plan to regain wealth and position. She does not need love because she will always love herself. This makes her a terrifying force among the other, weaker characters. Sounds awful, right? How can readers like her? Perhaps because Thackeray gives us no other hero, we cling to Becky for her never-say-die attitude. She's the catalyst that finally pushes milquetoast Dobbin and Amanda together, albeit in her usual cruel way. But it's a relief after reading hundreds of pages of Amanda pining for undeserving Osbourne while Dobbin shoots her the puppy-dog eyes. In the end, no character is left with respect for Becky, but she comes out just fine. She was never out for people's respect; she just wanted their money. On the whole, it's a biting satire of society life, and the things one does to "make it" among its confines.

[baswood · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Thackeray's Victorian novel is above all a satire. A journalist turned author, he cast his eyes around him and did not like what he saw. He has been labelled a realist and a searcher after truth and he uses wit, irony and biting satire to expose the corrupt and stagnant society that appeared all around him.Thackeray's society is Vanity Fair. It is a place where individuals are driven by the worship of wealth, rank, power and class and are corrupted by it. Greed and lust predominate. The satire is at times savage and grotesque, but like much great fiction it resonates with modern readers. Today the Wall Street Occupation immediately springs to mind as well as earlier protest movements in the late 1960's. Thackeray's many allusions to Vanity Fair reminded me of Bob Dylan's Desolation Row, however it was some snatches of lyrics from "Its alright Ma, I'm only Bleeding" that seemed particularly relevant:"gargles in the rat race choirbent out of shape by society's pliersOld lady judges watch people in pairsLimited in sex they dareTo push fake morals, insult and stareWhile money doesn't talk it swears......" The novel was published in monthly installments from January 1847 to July 1848 and had an immediate impact. Charlotte Bronte (writing under her pseudonym Currer Bell) in her preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre said: "I regard him (Thackeray) as the first social regenerator of this day - as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things...... His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius, that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer cloud, does to the electric death spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr Thackeray, because to him - if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger I have dedicated the second edition of Jane EyreCurrer BellDec 21st 1847 "Why did this mocking misanthropic book that has overtones of misogyny create such an impact at the time and has been regarded as a classic of English Literature ever since? Apart from the social commentary it has a story to tell. Two young women emerge from Mrs Pinkerton's academy for young ladies to take their place in society in the early years of the 19th century. Amelia Sedley was a paying border and coming from a rich merchant family her marriage prospects are good. Her friend Becky Sharpe was kept on at the Academy because of her teaching abilities and the best that she can look forward to is a place as a governess. The two girls could not be more different. Becky is clever and resourceful and an adroit manipulator of other people, she realises she must use her wits and her sex to get ahead. Amelia on the other hand while possessing both beauty and excellent manners is a weak character, unworldly, easily moved to tears and selfishly insular in her outlook. Their stories are told in parallel in the first part of the book, but intersect in the city of Brussels on the eve of the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. This is the midpoint and backbone of the book. Following these climactic events the story moves back to London where Amelia and Becky suffer different fortunes. Amelia having lost her husband at Waterloo sinks into poverty as a result of her fathers failed business ventures. Becky builds on her success in Brussells and reaches for the highest echelons of society. Her marriage to Rawdon Crawley the brother of a barronet and a gambler and swindler to boot does not hold her back. Fortunes change again as the women who both now have a son meet towards the end of the book and enact a rather dispiriting denouement.If this all sounds like a Bildungsroman where the characters moral and psychological development is the focus, then you would be mistaken for thinking so. Few of the characters develop in this way, they remain static and perhaps this is the point of the novel. Society or Vanity Fair allows for no character development. They keep on doing what they do as the all consuming rush for money power and position is the real focus for Thackeray's novel. Amelia remains the childish women she always was. Becky continues to live by her cleverness, her wit and her sex, until she is no longer able to do so. The male characters are too busy making money or seeking glory or like the faithful Dobbin: following a false dream, which when this fades there is nothing left but to do his duty.Thackeray prefaces his novel with the idea of the Manager of the performance. It is this manager who will constantly interrupt the story to speak directly to the reader, telling him his views on the characters and their actions. At one point towards the end of the novel the manager tells his readers that he sat down with some of the characters outside a cafe and the story they told him is the one he is now relating to us. The question that is difficult to answer then is; who is this manager/narrator, is it the author Thackeray himself speaking to us. Are there two voices here. The book is written in a omniscient narrative style with these authorial interludes directed straight at the reader. This allows Thackeray to interpret events, give hints to future events, to recap on previous events, to fill in details and play with the time line. Sometimes it feels as though he is just playing with his readers. A typical example is when Amelia is praying for the safe return of her husband George Osborne:"Have we the right to repeat or overhear her prayers? These brother are secrets, and out of the domain of vanity Fair in which our story lies."This is fascinating because Thackeray is both a satirist/social analyst and a moralist and these points of view do not always sit together comfortably. There is some confusion as to which hat the author is wearing or what voice he is speaking with. This results however in the characters having a sort of life of their own as we are constantly seeing them from different sides. Becky is subject to many of these authorial reviews, which culminate in this wonderful passage towards the end of the novel:"I defy anyone to say that our Becky, who has certainly some vices, has not been presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and inoffensive manner. In describing this syren, singing and smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author with modest pride, asks his readers all around, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail above water? No! Those who like may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent, and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling round corpses; but above the water line, I ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable and decorous, and has any the most squeamish immoralist in Vanity Fair right to cry fie? When however the syren disappears and dives below, down among the dead men, the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour lost to look into it ever so curiously. They look pretty enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to come and hold the looking glass; but when they sink into their native element depend on it those mermaids are about no good, and we had best not examine the fiendish marine cannibals, revelling and feasting on their wretched pickled victims. And so, when Becky is out of the way, be sure she is not particularly well employed, and that the less said about her doings the better"This passage highlights Thackeray's ambivalence towards his heroine. Thackeray's masterstroke is to compare her with the saintly but inept Amelia as their lives run parallel. Becky has battled against the odds to become a player in vanity Fair and has had fun doing it. Nobody has as much fun in this novel as Becky Sharpe. (apart from her admiring husband Rawdon Crawley perhaps)This is a must read for lovers of the Victorian novel and for those who wish to chart the development of the novel in the English language. There are some issues for the modern reader. Thackeray was a journalist with a wide knowledge of current events. His text is sprinkled with personalities, politicians, artists who were well known at the time, but have since faded into obscurity. A thoroughly annotated text is recommended for the reader who wished to pick up on all the references. It is not essential though to enjoy the book, although it will be easier for readers native to England. It is a long novel nearly 700 pages and there is some obvious padding. Thackeray had to produce 32 pages of script for his monthly deadlines and some passages feel like add ons in order to fulfill his contract. Having said that I found the book fairly well structured and some of the recaps were helpful.This is a book to be savoured and enjoyed and for those people unfamiliar with the genre, may find it quite astonishing. A well written biting satire of a corrupt and moribund society is enough to hold my interest. This together with some wonderful characters (who can forget Jos "Waterloo" Sedley or Sir Pitt Crawley) and some purple patches of prose make this a classic in every sense of the word. And don't forget Thackeray's marvellous illustrations; well over a hundred of them.

[kaethe_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The sad thing about earning a BA in English Literature is that most of the books you have to read and think about won't actually be enjoyable. This is an exception. It's funny.

[jayne_charles_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a really really good story, I just wish it hadn't been so long winded. The bit where Amelia has to choose whether to part with her child is absolutely heartbreaking, really really well written. In contrast there were some bits (particularly in Belgium) which were so tedious I practically lost the will to live.

[lucybrown_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this ages ago. First in my Victorian novel class, and a few years later at a more leisurely pace. It is a real treat. Very pointed satire made even funnier with the sly illustrations. This is certainly one for the ages; pure entertainment

[celerydog_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Becky Sharpe is one of my all time favourite literary characters. I've read this book twice now, with different book clubs, 14 years apart, but the joy has not diminished. Those who finished the book were in thrall to Thackeray's mastery of the genre. A definite classic and a treat!

[dablackwood · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. Being immersed in 19th century society in and around London was a real treat. Of course there were some tedious parts - the naming of all the people at an event, etc., but the story was wonderful and the characters rich and fulfilling. A wonderful summer read

[literatehousewife · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was assigned this book my junior year of high school by Sr. Irene Mary at Grand Rapids Catholic Central. For our project that year, we had to select an art discipline. That would be the basis for our paper. From there, Sr. Irene Mary selected the specific topic. For some reason, I got assigned this tome when others who chose literature got much skinnier selections like The Portrait of Dorian Grey. Still, Sr. Irene Mary gave us our own copy of the book she selected for us. I was excited about that. That's when I learned that getting a book for free doesn't mean that it doesn't come at a cost.I don't remember much about this book other than I worked so hard on my paper. I wanted an A more than I wanted anything else in this world. I spent nearly 6 weeks on it and was positive I had done the best I could. When I got my paper back, I got a B+. Sister found a misplaced comma or something. I was devastated. My parents spoke to her at the time, but I didn't find out later that Sister's explanation for my grade was that I wasn't an A student. This was my best work to date, but a B+ was my top grade. Yes, I still hold this against this novel. LOL!So, despite the fact that I can't really remember the storyline, this book brings back a lot of memories. It was the last project that I spent any amount of time on. From there on out, I wrote all of my papers the night before they were due - all the way through grad school. For some reason, I always got As after that.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The story opens with two graduating students leaving Miss Pickerton's academy for young ladies. One graduate, Amelia Sedley, is well loved and receives an enormous send off while her companion, Rebecca Sharp, barely garners a glance. Becky is an orphaned governess, traveling with Amelia as her guest. Once at the Sedley home Rebecca sets out to become betrothed to Amelia's brother, Joseph. Jos serves as Collector of Boggley Wollah in the East India Company's Civil Service. Once that attempt fails Rebecca becomes even more amoral and shameless. In today's terms she would be classified as a psychopath because of her lack of conscience and her inability to feel anything for her fellow man. Amelia is disgustingly sweet and Rebecca is shamelessly indifferent. Neither one makes a satisfying hero in Thackeray's eyes. I found the story to be plotless and pointless. What made the reading more difficult was Thackeray getting confused and mixing up the characters.

[mountie9_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mini Book Review: This was a truly fascinating but at time extremely boring piece of literature. At times I was laughing aloud at the biting and witty commentary about early 19th century Britain and the absurdity of the upper class society. But I found that as soon as I was enjoying it Thackery would go off on some side story that really could have been left out and quite frankly bored this simple girl to tears. I struggled less with the language in this classic as it wasn't as flowery or overly descriptive as in many pieces of literature during this period in history. I did have to put it down quite frequently as Thackery gives a very dark portrayal of human nature and I have a more hopeful positive nature and it was making me sorta depressed. The characters are very richly drawn, but they are extremely flawed and I felt no real attachment to them. I know that this is the point of the book, but I have to feel something for the characters in the story to truly enjoy. I was either disgusted with how horrific the characters were (Becky & Jos) or disgusted by how wussy other characters were (Amelia & Dobbin). As a social commentary this is brilliant and for those obviously more intellectual than I am you will enjoy. However, I am a far more simple girl and I prefer a good story that I can lose myself in.3 Dewey's (as usual this is based on my enjoyment and not on the quality of the writing)I read this as part of the BBC Top 100 Books Challenge & it came preloaded onto my Kobo

[survivingniki · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

William Makepeace Thackeray was the 19th century equivalent to Jackie Collins but with the inside scoop on the decadent English and French nobility instead of the Hollywood elite. His tale about the overly ambitious but lovely Becky is both a piercing stab at English society and a guilty pleasure to read. I think he meant it to be a morality tale, but I, for one, wanted Becky to rule the world.

[lucylocket_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Such a wonderful book. Becky Sharp is so wicked ! Her friend Amelia is such a wimp I want to hit her every time I read it. It is so funny!!!!

[maowangvater · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A biting and witty satire on English social life and customs during the first part of the nineteenth century, its subtitle is “a novel without a hero,” and it could also be added without heroines. Yet the book’s two central characters, the virtuous but dim and naive Amelia Sedley and the amoral, clever, congenial Becky Sharp both display admirable and distressing qualities as they rise, fall, and rise again in society. One of the great virtues of Vanity Fair is that while it is told in hilarious prose, with short burst of genuine pathos, it was praised by its contemporaries as a thoroughly realistic account of the society that it portrays.

[vrchristensen · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Vanity Fair is about the adventures of the young Becky Sharp, born to humble circumstances but given certain opportunities to raise herself, which she takes full advantage of, sometimes to her benefit, more often to her detriment. As heroine's go...well...she isn't one, hence the book's subtitle, "A Novel Without a Hero". It is written as social satire. For a man fully entrenched in Victorianism, the early part of the century provided a great deal of fodder for novel material. But there's nothing funny about it. The Napoleanic War, the fight for Social survival, the harsh realities of a class system, and thrown into this is the avaricious and scheming Becky Sharp, who takes advantage, and with a realism that at times persuades the reader to sympathise with her. In her path, however, she leaves a wake of ruin. Sympathies change, though, as the book progresses, and while, at first, we may have rooted for one non-heroine, by the end, we are rooting for quite another. The book has a happy-ish ending, with a sobering monologue to put all in its place and to cast a shade of reality over it. But one is left, at the conclusion, with the impression that Thackeray rather tired of his characters before he had quite completed his novel. Overall, it was an interesting look into a Victorian gentleman's view of the decades before him, but it is not by any means one of my favourite books of the era.

[saraprindiville · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very Soap Opera-ish. A lot like Tom Jones in that the author will lead up to an exciting part then not talk about it for a long time to keep you reading. Vanity Fair at least was a serial which is why. Good story, not very deep, but worthwhile fluff. Predictable ending.

[fluffyblue_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very enjoyable romp through the Regency period, in both London, Hampshire, Belgium and Germany. The book is mainly about two characters, Becky Sharp, a rather brash young woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants, and Amelia Sedley, a young woman from a rich family, who starts life with all that she wants and needs, but falls upon unhappy times in both love and money. The writing is humorous at times, and the descriptions of the times and the people very entertaining. There is sadness too with lots of love and loss going on. All in all a long book, which you need to invest some time and devotion to, but well worth it.

[sandydog1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Yet another long, presumably serialized, early Victorian soap opera about a young girl and others, clawing up the social ladder. Great characters and character development. The author's short essays and sarcastic observations are very amusing.