Vanity Fair (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

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No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles - military and domestic - are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.

Thackeray’s compendious novel of love and intrigue during the Napoleonic wars. Publication to tie in with the forthcoming BBC TV series directed by Andrew Davies(director of 'Pride and Prejudice').
VANITY FAIR

Set against the background of the Napoleonic wars, 'Vanity Fair ' follows the contrasting fortunes of two young women, Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp, who go out into the world together, but whose lives take very different courses. The sensitive Amelia begins with every social advantage and the prospect of a good marriage, but war and sudden drastic decline in her family’s circumstances dash all her hopes; while Becky, a drawing master’s daughter with only her wits to rely on, embarks on a campaign to launch herself into society, marries Rawdon Crawley, an aristocratic rake, on an impulse and begins a giddy social whirl on ‘nothing a year’ and an ocean of debt. Thackeray’s ‘novel without a hero’ is a lively satirical journey through English society, exposing greed, snobbery and pretension.

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William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was born and educated to be a gentleman but gambled away much of his fortune while at Cambridge. He trained as a lawyer before turning to journalism. He was a regular contributor to periodicals and magazines and Vanity Fair was serialised in Punch in 1847-8.

John Carey is Professor of English at Oxford University. He has written on Dickens and Thackeray.