Vanity Fair is perhaps Thackeray's most famous novel. First serialized over the course of 19 volumes in Punch Magazine and first printed as a single volume in 1849, the novel cemented Thackeray's literary fame and kept him busy with frequent revisions and even lecture circuits.
The story is framed as a puppet play, narrated by an unreliable narrator, that presents the story of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley and the people in their lives as they struggle through the Napoleonic Wars. The story itself, like many other Thackeray novels, is a satire of the lives of the Victorian English of a certain class. Thackeray packed the novel with allusions, many of which were difficult even for his contemporary readers; part of the heavy revisions he later made were making the allusions more accessible to his evolving audience.
As part of his satirical bent, Thackeray made a point to make each character flawed, so that there are no "heroes" in the book-hence the subtitle "A Novel Without a Hero." Thackeray's goal was not only to entertain, but to instruct; to that end, he wanted the reader to look within themselves after finishing the unhappy conclusion, in which there's no hint as to how society might be able to improve on the evils shadowed in the events of the novel.
Vanity Fair received glowing praise by its critical contemporaries, and remains a popular book well into modern times, having been adapted repeatedly for film, radio, and television.
Perfect for readers who love sharp social commentary wrapped in brilliant storytelling, this masterpiece of Victorian literature delivers biting satire alongside unforgettable characters navigating love, ambition, and betrayal during one of history's most tumultuous periods. Thackeray's wit and insight into human nature make this timeless classic as relevant and entertaining today as it was over 170 years ago.
The source for this public-domain ebook is Standard Ebooks (standardebooks.org). Ebooks from other sources often have typos, inconsistent spelling, missing accent marks, and missing punctuation. Ebooks from Standard Ebooks are proofread line by line against a scan of the original printed pages, then proofread again from cover to cover. They are also formatted and typeset following a professional-grade style manual, resulting in new editions supporting state-of-the-art ereader technology: automatic hyphenation, popup footnotes, complete and consistent metadata, high-resolution and scalable vector graphics, and ereader-compatible tables of contents. All of this makes the finished ebooks accurate, functional, and beautiful, a pleasure to read. (Waking Lion Press is not affiliated with or endorsed by Standard Ebooks.)