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Vanity Fair (Penguin Classics)
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Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray
Publisher: Penguin Classics
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Our Price: $8.00
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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Vanity Fair (Penguin Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780141439839
ISBN: 0141439831
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 912
Publication Date: 2003-04-29
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Product Release Date: 2003-04-29
Studio: Penguin Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780141439839
ISBN: 0141439831
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 912
Publication Date: 2003-04-29
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Product Release Date: 2003-04-29
Studio: Penguin Classics
Editorial Review of Vanity Fair (Penguin Classics)
Edited by John Carey.
Customer Reviews of Vanity Fair (Penguin Classics)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: funny story with some funny names
Review: "Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray, published 1924
This is a funny story with some funny names, to wit, Becky Sharp is sharp in getting her way. Miss Sharp was in a finishing school with another girl in the early 1800's, they both left at he same time. Miss Sharp in a snit because the school mistress did not do her honor as Miss Sharp felt was her due. He friend just left. The story does not get much further than that: good things happen to Becky, and bad things happen to Amelia Sedley. Miss Sharp does get her comeuppance, and Miss Sedley does get to be happy, but that is just so much ho-hum, and here we go again. You know that Miss Sharp will do something else to 'improve' her situation.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Immerse Yourself in Superb Writing
Review: Reading "Vanity Fair," as long as it runs (800 pp. in this edition), is like floating down a slow river on a beautiful summer day, where you take in the scenery in all its rich texture, splendor and variation. Thackeray is a master of dialog, narrative flow, characterization (his insights into womens' characters is amazing) and plot timing. His satire of British (particularly English) social mores of the time is as biting as it is subtle. You can see and hear in the novel the inspiration for Henry James, Wilde, Waugh and Forrester. There are laugh out loud lines (English humor kind of sneaks up on you), and passages that are written so well as to take your breath away.
You can read about the plot and the cast of characters in this "Novel Without a Hero" in other reviews. If there is any flaw in the book, it is the somewhat two-dimensional aspect of most of the characters, Becky Sharp and William Dobbin being the exceptions. But much of Thackeray's intent was satire, which requires that characters be "of a type" to get the broader commentary or point across. Frankly, I found even the "flattest" of the most minor characters entirely convincing and appropriate in their places in the story.
My praise for this book lies in its stylistic brilliance and masterful execution. Dickens (Thackeray's more or less contemporary)was a great writer. In fact, Vanity Fair reminded me in places of the hilarious The Pickwick Papers. But at times Dickens plods through a story - e.g., Bleak House. Dickens was a novelist; Thackery was a story-teller, an omniscient director of a theatrical "production" that is a both drama and comedy. From time to time Thackeray deliberately "intrudes" into the story to take you into the author's confidence with gentle and usually humorous asides and observations about the action or the characters. But this device enhances rather than detracts from the story.
This particular edition has Professor(Oxford)John Carey's fine introduction (read it AFTER you've read the book or it will spoil the plot). Carey's extensive end notes - where he explains many of the English colloquialisms and slang of the period and various historical and other literary allusions - are both valuable and entertaining.
Vanity Fair is a great example of why we study the Humanities -- not only for what they tell us about ourselves but for the sheer delight of the experience.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Vanity Fair is Thackeray's masterpiece and one of England's greatest novels
Review: William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was born in Calcutta, educated in England and died on Christmas Eve 1863. Along the way he was an illustrator, lecturer, journalist, editor and most notably a great novelist. During his lifetime Mr. Thackeray's works ran second only to the immortal Boz Charles Dickens in popularity and copies sold. His masterpiece is "Vanity Fair."
The title is taken from Puritan John Bunyan's "Pilgrims Progress".Thackeray used it to as the ttle of his 800 page behemoth of a Victorian three-decker. Vanity Fair examines with irony, wit and realism life in Napoleonic Europe. The vast panoramic work has countless character but the main ones are:
1. Becky Sharp-one of the greatest bad girls in all of fiction who inspired Margaret Mitchell's Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Becky is the daughter of an impecunious painter and a French show girl. Her father dies and Becky must be sharp in intellect to survive. Becky is a shrewd baggage of lies, deceptions and intrigue who also is charming, talented in music and art.She beguiles the reader. Becky leaves Miss Pinkerton's Academy by tossing out the coach window Dr Johnson's dictionary symbolizing her earthy awareness of life as it is lived. She is a rebel and lives today as she did in 1848 when Thackeray created her.
2. Amelia Sedley will remind you of Melanie in GWTW. Her father loses his fortune and she marries the playboy idiot George Osborne. George is killed at Waterloo so Amelia is forced to raise their son Georgy in poverty. Amelia is an innocent ninny who lacks intelligence though her motherly love is commendable. The reader wants to smack her for her refusal to have sense enough to know that William Dobbin is madly in love with her!
She has a stupid brother Jos Sedley who becomes the love slave of Becky. He spends years in India and grows wealthy, fat and dumb.
3. George Osborne weds Amelia but at the Duchess of Richmond's Ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo he writes a love note to Becky. George is spoiled by his rich family. He is egotistical and greedy.
4. William Dobbin is the best friend of George and is in love with Amelia. He is a faithful and loving friend who is always there to help Amelia when she is in in a jam. Life a faithful old horse who might be named Dobbin he is a man with a good heart and mind. His love for a married woman is based on Thackeray's own infatuation with a married woman Jane Brookfield.
5. Rawdon Crawley is a British officer who is the son of the old rogue Sir Pitt Crawley of Queen's Crawley estate. He loves gambling, girls, drink and Becky Sharp. Becky will have a stormy marriage which will founder on her affair with Lord Steyne. Rawdon's borther is Pitt Crawley Jr. who inherits the estate and weds a good woman named Jane Sheepshanks.
Thackeray's work will hold your attention despite its great length. His account of the civilian experience of the battle of Waterloo is superb. Thackeray has humor, pathos, sadness and joy within these pages. To fully enjoy Vanity Fair you need to read it rather than watch it on a DVD! Victorian novels are often long due to the fact they were published serially in magazines.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Universal
Review: The book is really good, even though it is really long, it is not boring. So many characters and things going on. And it still surprises me after all those years relationships have still the same tricks. The human physiology never changes.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Great...Great...Great...
Review: I picked up this book, and groaned at the sight. 700 pages of dense small text?! Numerous minor characters to remember? Arghhh...
But then, when I finally got enough time to read it, it is brilliant. Thackeray is a great social critic-and many of his criticisms of the upper class could be applied to high school and situations today. The novel is an epic, a journey to be sure, and is better than a current day soap opera, as some of the reviewers said. I thought it was more like Jane Austen - romance + criticism + 5 more families + many more minor relationships.
I'm definitely looking forward to rereading this book again (maybe not for a while though-it's a LONG book!) when I'm older
Review Summary: funny story with some funny names
Review: "Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray, published 1924
This is a funny story with some funny names, to wit, Becky Sharp is sharp in getting her way. Miss Sharp was in a finishing school with another girl in the early 1800's, they both left at he same time. Miss Sharp in a snit because the school mistress did not do her honor as Miss Sharp felt was her due. He friend just left. The story does not get much further than that: good things happen to Becky, and bad things happen to Amelia Sedley. Miss Sharp does get her comeuppance, and Miss Sedley does get to be happy, but that is just so much ho-hum, and here we go again. You know that Miss Sharp will do something else to 'improve' her situation.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Immerse Yourself in Superb Writing
Review: Reading "Vanity Fair," as long as it runs (800 pp. in this edition), is like floating down a slow river on a beautiful summer day, where you take in the scenery in all its rich texture, splendor and variation. Thackeray is a master of dialog, narrative flow, characterization (his insights into womens' characters is amazing) and plot timing. His satire of British (particularly English) social mores of the time is as biting as it is subtle. You can see and hear in the novel the inspiration for Henry James, Wilde, Waugh and Forrester. There are laugh out loud lines (English humor kind of sneaks up on you), and passages that are written so well as to take your breath away.
You can read about the plot and the cast of characters in this "Novel Without a Hero" in other reviews. If there is any flaw in the book, it is the somewhat two-dimensional aspect of most of the characters, Becky Sharp and William Dobbin being the exceptions. But much of Thackeray's intent was satire, which requires that characters be "of a type" to get the broader commentary or point across. Frankly, I found even the "flattest" of the most minor characters entirely convincing and appropriate in their places in the story.
My praise for this book lies in its stylistic brilliance and masterful execution. Dickens (Thackeray's more or less contemporary)was a great writer. In fact, Vanity Fair reminded me in places of the hilarious The Pickwick Papers. But at times Dickens plods through a story - e.g., Bleak House. Dickens was a novelist; Thackery was a story-teller, an omniscient director of a theatrical "production" that is a both drama and comedy. From time to time Thackeray deliberately "intrudes" into the story to take you into the author's confidence with gentle and usually humorous asides and observations about the action or the characters. But this device enhances rather than detracts from the story.
This particular edition has Professor(Oxford)John Carey's fine introduction (read it AFTER you've read the book or it will spoil the plot). Carey's extensive end notes - where he explains many of the English colloquialisms and slang of the period and various historical and other literary allusions - are both valuable and entertaining.
Vanity Fair is a great example of why we study the Humanities -- not only for what they tell us about ourselves but for the sheer delight of the experience.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Vanity Fair is Thackeray's masterpiece and one of England's greatest novels
Review: William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was born in Calcutta, educated in England and died on Christmas Eve 1863. Along the way he was an illustrator, lecturer, journalist, editor and most notably a great novelist. During his lifetime Mr. Thackeray's works ran second only to the immortal Boz Charles Dickens in popularity and copies sold. His masterpiece is "Vanity Fair."
The title is taken from Puritan John Bunyan's "Pilgrims Progress".Thackeray used it to as the ttle of his 800 page behemoth of a Victorian three-decker. Vanity Fair examines with irony, wit and realism life in Napoleonic Europe. The vast panoramic work has countless character but the main ones are:
1. Becky Sharp-one of the greatest bad girls in all of fiction who inspired Margaret Mitchell's Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Becky is the daughter of an impecunious painter and a French show girl. Her father dies and Becky must be sharp in intellect to survive. Becky is a shrewd baggage of lies, deceptions and intrigue who also is charming, talented in music and art.She beguiles the reader. Becky leaves Miss Pinkerton's Academy by tossing out the coach window Dr Johnson's dictionary symbolizing her earthy awareness of life as it is lived. She is a rebel and lives today as she did in 1848 when Thackeray created her.
2. Amelia Sedley will remind you of Melanie in GWTW. Her father loses his fortune and she marries the playboy idiot George Osborne. George is killed at Waterloo so Amelia is forced to raise their son Georgy in poverty. Amelia is an innocent ninny who lacks intelligence though her motherly love is commendable. The reader wants to smack her for her refusal to have sense enough to know that William Dobbin is madly in love with her!
She has a stupid brother Jos Sedley who becomes the love slave of Becky. He spends years in India and grows wealthy, fat and dumb.
3. George Osborne weds Amelia but at the Duchess of Richmond's Ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo he writes a love note to Becky. George is spoiled by his rich family. He is egotistical and greedy.
4. William Dobbin is the best friend of George and is in love with Amelia. He is a faithful and loving friend who is always there to help Amelia when she is in in a jam. Life a faithful old horse who might be named Dobbin he is a man with a good heart and mind. His love for a married woman is based on Thackeray's own infatuation with a married woman Jane Brookfield.
5. Rawdon Crawley is a British officer who is the son of the old rogue Sir Pitt Crawley of Queen's Crawley estate. He loves gambling, girls, drink and Becky Sharp. Becky will have a stormy marriage which will founder on her affair with Lord Steyne. Rawdon's borther is Pitt Crawley Jr. who inherits the estate and weds a good woman named Jane Sheepshanks.
Thackeray's work will hold your attention despite its great length. His account of the civilian experience of the battle of Waterloo is superb. Thackeray has humor, pathos, sadness and joy within these pages. To fully enjoy Vanity Fair you need to read it rather than watch it on a DVD! Victorian novels are often long due to the fact they were published serially in magazines.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Universal
Review: The book is really good, even though it is really long, it is not boring. So many characters and things going on. And it still surprises me after all those years relationships have still the same tricks. The human physiology never changes.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Great...Great...Great...
Review: I picked up this book, and groaned at the sight. 700 pages of dense small text?! Numerous minor characters to remember? Arghhh...
But then, when I finally got enough time to read it, it is brilliant. Thackeray is a great social critic-and many of his criticisms of the upper class could be applied to high school and situations today. The novel is an epic, a journey to be sure, and is better than a current day soap opera, as some of the reviewers said. I thought it was more like Jane Austen - romance + criticism + 5 more families + many more minor relationships.
I'm definitely looking forward to rereading this book again (maybe not for a while though-it's a LONG book!) when I'm older