Two young women, one clever and ruthless, the other gentle and naive, make their way through English society
A novel without a hero
Becky Sharp is poor, witty, ambitious and utterly unscrupulous. Her schoolfriend Amelia Sedley is wealthy, kind and naive. As they leave school, their lives take them through the glittering, greedy world of English society during the Napoleonic Wars, where Becky climbs by charm and cunning, and Amelia clings to her love for the selfish George Osborne.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who love long, witty classics full of social satire, memorable characters and a famous antiheroine.
What you will get
A sharp, funny and sweeping satire of greed and social ambition, featuring Becky Sharp, one of the most entertaining antiheroines in English literature.
Vanity Fair Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Classics · Satire · Social climbing · Napoleonic era
Length
912 pages · ≈ 27 h
More about this book
Thackeray subtitled the book A Novel without a Hero, and his narrator, a playful puppeteer, comments freely on the characters' vanity. Becky becomes a governess in the household of the coarse Sir Pitt Crawley and secretly marries his son, Rawdon, a gambling cavalry officer, which costs them his rich aunt's fortune. Amelia marries George Osborne against his father's wishes, while George's loyal friend William Dobbin quietly loves Amelia for years.
The story moves to Brussels on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, where Becky flirts and calculates while the soldiers prepare for battle, and the outcome changes Amelia's life. Later, Becky and Rawdon live in London on nothing a year, borrowing and charming their way into high society, while Becky attracts the dangerous patronage of a powerful, wealthy marquis. Amelia, meanwhile, falls into poverty and devotes herself to her son. Thackeray's satire of snobbery, money and hypocrisy remains sharp, and Becky's energy makes her hard not to admire.
Long and leisurely but very entertaining, a rich portrait of an entire society. About 912 pages in the Penguin Classics edition.
Middlemarch
Pride and Prejudice
Great Expectations
The House of Mirth
Don Quixote
The Master and Margarita
Gulliver's Travels
The Canterbury Tales
Parade's End
The Portrait of a Lady
Under the Volcano
War and Peace