Vanity Fair

Description

THE CLASSIC NOVEL WHICH INSPIRED THE MAJOR ITV SERIES FROM THE MAKERS OF POLDARK AND VICTORIA 'I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year' Becky Sharp is a poor orphan when she first makes friends with the lovely Amelia Sedley at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies. She may not have the natural advantages of her companion but she more than makes up for it with her wit, charm, deviousness and determination to make a success of herself in the world, whatever the cost. Vanity Fair is the story of anti-hero Becky's spectacular rise and fall as she gambles, manipulates and seduces her way through high society against the backdrop of Waterloo and the Napoleonic wars.

William Makepeace Thackeray was born on 18 July 1811 in Calcutta in India. After studying at Trinity College Cambridge he worked as a journalist and studied Art in London and Paris. In 1836 he married Isabella Shawe and they went on to have three daughters, one of whom died in infancy. He first found literary success with The Yellowplush Papers in 1837 and went on to write other works such asThe FitzBoodle Papers, Catherine, The Luck of Barry Lyndon and The Snobs of England before he published his masterpiece, Vanity Fair, in 1847. William Makepeace Thackeray died on Christmas Eve in 1863.

The only English novel which...challenges comparison with War and Peace -- John Carey The best thing he ever wrote - sharp, brilliant, touching, clever and cruel, with an unforgettable heroine -- Joanna Trollope Witty, sexy, sandy-haired Becky Sharp, whose impoverished background explains her hunger for rich men and high position. She is a rebel from the very first chapter of Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Her one final act of kindness derives from her constant virtue: seeing things as they are -- Maggie Gee * Independent * A terrific book - bold, funny, scathing and quite unpredictable -- Al Murray Becky Sharp may be one of literature's great schemers, but she's also one of its most memorable and entertaining. More rounded than almost all the simpering Victorian dolls who followed, she alone is worth the read * The Times *