Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
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Vanity Fair

Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

Narrator: Jill Masters

Unabridged: 32 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/01/1989

Synopsis

A panoramic satire of English society during the Napoleonic Wars, Vanity Fair is William Makepeace Thackeray’s masterpiece. At its center is one of the most unforgettable characters in nineteenth-century literature: the enthralling Becky Sharp, a charmingly ruthless social climber who is determined to leave behind her humble origins, no matter the cost. Her more gentle friend Amelia, by contrast, only cares for Captain George Osborne, despite his selfishness and her family’s disapproval. As both women move within the flamboyant milieu of Regency England, the political turmoil of the era is matched by the scheming Becky’s sensational rise—and its unforeseen aftermath. Based in part upon Thackeray’s own love for the wife of a friend, Vanity Fair portrays the hypocrisy and corruption of high society and the dangers of unrestrained ambition with epic brilliance and scathing wit. With an introduction by Catherine Peters.

About The Author

William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1811, but was sent to England at the age of six. After his education at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, having gambled away much of his fortune at university, he settled in Paris and tried a career as a painter. It was here that he met 19-year-old Isabella Shawe, upon whom he based many of his virtuous but weak heroines, and whom he married in 1836, before returning to London with her a year later. He was a novelist and journalist, writing prolifically for numerous periodicals and magazines. Vanity Fair was first published as a 20-part serial in Punch in 1847-48. He became editor of the newly established Cornhill Magazine in 1860. Thackeray, who had a penchant for eating and drinking heavily and led a generally unhealthy lifestyle, died suddenly of a stroke in 1863.Jill Masters is an audiobook narrator whose titles include Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Howards End, Vanity Fair, and many more.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.)

Here I am, 54 years old, and for the very first time reading William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair. "Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero." I disagree with Thackeray. The 'Hero' of Vanity Fair is the steadfast and stalwart William Dobbin; of that there is no doubt. This novel is not the coming of......more

Goodreads review by Bionic Jean

Written in 1848, Vanity Fair is an excellent satire of English society in the early 19th Century. Thackeray states several times that it is a novel "without a hero",and at a couple of points tries to claim that Amelia, a good person but who inevitably comes across as rather wishy-washy, is the her......more

Goodreads review by Kelly

"But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a dear little creature. And a great mercy it is, both in life and in novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of the most sombre sort that we are to have for......more

Goodreads review by Paul

1. I liked the company of Thackeray who is breezy, ebullient and cynical about everyone’s motives. And he’s very confident too. He thinks he knows everything, although there’s not a word about how the poor live here, that’s not his subject. So he’s like the mid-19th century version of Tom Wolfe or J......more

Goodreads review by Luffy (Oda's Version)

The author makes his presence known towards the end of the book. It was both eerie and uncanny. He kept breaking the fourth wall, then he conjured that apparition of his in one of the last chapters. Vanity Fair contains no real heroes. That was a fact that Thackeray himself stated, and who am I to di......more

Quotes

"I do not say there is no character as well drawn in Shakespeare [as D'Artagnan]. I do say there is none that I love so wholly."
--Robert Louis Stevenson

"The lasting and universal popularity of The Three Musketeers shows that Dumas, by artlessly expressing his own nature in the persons of his heroes, was responding to that craving for action, strength and generosity which is a fact in all periods and all places."
--Andreé Maurois

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