Vanity Fair

The Illustrated Gift Edition

William Makepeace Thackeray

• Publisher: Aeneas Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9785501007895
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Becky Sharp leaves school by throwing the dictionary out of the carriage window and climbs, by charm and calculation, through a society that deserves her. Amelia Sedley is loyal past all sense. Thackeray called it a novel without a hero and meant it: the gaze is colder than Dickens's and considerably more adult. The Gilded Library volume carries full-page plates — ballrooms, the Waterloo encampment, society drawing rooms — and takes its decoration from the domino mask, the fan, the playing cards and the puppet booth of Thackeray's own frontispiece.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Before the Curtain
• Chapter I. Chiswick Mall
• Chapter II. In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign
• Chapter III. Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy
• Chapter IV. The Green Silk Purse
• Chapter V. Dobbin of Ours
• Chapter VI. Vauxhall
• Chapter VII. Crawley of Queen’s Crawley
• Chapter VIII. Private and Confidential
• Chapter IX. Family Portraits
• Chapter X. Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends
• Chapter XI. Arcadian Simplicity
• Chapter XII. Quite a Sentimental Chapter
• Chapter XIII. Sentimental and Otherwise
• Chapter XIV. Miss Crawley at Home
• Chapter XV. In Which Rebecca’s Husband Appears for a Short Time
• Chapter XVI. The Letter on the Pincushion
• Chapter XVII. How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano
• Chapter XVIII. Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought
• Chapter XIX. Miss Crawley at Nurse
• Chapter XX. In Which Captain Dobbin Acts as the Messenger of Hymen
• Chapter XXI. A Quarrel About an Heiress
• Chapter XXII. A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon
• Chapter XXIII. Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass
• Chapter XXIV. In Which Mr. Osborne Takes Down the Family Bible
• Chapter XXV. In Which All the Principal Personages Think Fit to Leave Brighton
• Chapter XXVI. Between London and Chatham
• Chapter XXVII. In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment
• Chapter XXVIII. In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries
• Chapter XXIX. Brussels
• Chapter XXX. “The Girl I Left Behind Me”
• Chapter XXXI. In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister
• Chapter XXXII. In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close
• Chapter XXXIII. In Which Miss Crawley’s Relations Are Very Anxious About Her
• Chapter XXXIV. James Crawley’s Pipe Is Put Out
• Chapter XXXV. Widow and Mother
• Chapter XXXVI. How to Live Well on Nothing a Year
• Chapter XXXVII. The Subject Continued
• Chapter XXXVIII. A Family in a Very Small Way
• Chapter XXXIX. A Cynical Chapter
• Chapter XL. In Which Becky Is Recognized by the Family
• Chapter XLI. In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors
• Chapter XLII. Which Treats of the Osborne Family
• Chapter XLIII. In Which the Reader Has to Double the Cape
• Chapter XLIV. A Round-about Chapter between London and Hampshire
• Chapter XLV. Between Hampshire and London
• Chapter XLVI. Struggles and Trials
• Chapter XLVII. Gaunt House
• Chapter XLVIII. In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company
• Chapter XLIX. In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert
• Chapter L. Contains a Vulgar Incident
• Chapter LI. In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader
• Chapter LII. In Which Lord Steyne Shows Himself in a Most Amiable Light
• Chapter LIII. A Rescue and a Catastrophe
• Chapter LIV. Sunday After the Battle
• Chapter LV. In Which the Same Subject is Pursued
• Chapter LVI. Georgy is Made a Gentleman
• Chapter LVII. Eothen
• Chapter LVIII. Our Friend the Major
• Chapter LIX. The Old Piano
• Chapter LX. Returns to the Genteel World
• Chapter LXI. In Which Two Lights are Put Out
• Chapter LXII. Am Rhein
• Chapter LXIII. In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance
• Chapter LXIV. A Vagabond Chapter
• Chapter LXV. Full of Business and Pleasure
• Chapter LXVI. Amantium Irae
• Chapter LXVII. Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths
• About the Author