Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

About Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

If you've enjoyed watching the 1998 BBC television miniseries, you'd probably want to renew your acquaintance with William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847 novel, Vanity Fair. However, if you're unfamiliar with what has been dubbed one of the Best 100 Books in English Literature, you certainly have a treat ahead. Miss Pinkerton's Academy in Chiswick Mall in London is where young ladies with ambitions of making a good marriage are sent by their socially aspiring middleclass parents. Two young ladies, Amelia Sedley and Rebecca (Becky) Sharpe are on their way home after completing their term at Miss Pinkerton's. Amelia is from a well to do family, while Becky is a scheming orphan who has latched on to her amiable friend in the hopes of climbing the social ladder. In Amelia's comfortable Russell Square home, Becky goes to work immediately. Her target is Amelia's clumsy, boastful, wealthy civil servant brother, Joseph, who is home on furlough from India. She also meets the dashing Captain George Osborne, Amelia's childhood sweetheart. Things don't go according to plan and Becky soon moves to a country mansion, Queen's Crawley, where she takes up a job as a governess to the children of the wealthy widower Sir Pitt Crawley. She manages to entrap the naïve younger son of the house, Rawdon Crawley. Meanwhile, Amelia and George marry. However, George is not all he seems and turns out to be a coward in war and an unscrupulous liar. He is also weary of his marriage and begins to pay undue attentions to Becky, whom he meets in Brighton where she is staying with her husband. The rest of the story follows the lives of the two classmates and their travails. The title of Vanity Fair is taken from John Bunyan's famous 17th century work, Pilgrim's Progress. In Bunyan's allegorical tale of Christian's journey, Vanity Fair is the name of an endless carnival in the town of Vanity, and represents worldly vices and sinful attachments. Thackeray was writing in the Golden Age of Satire when greats like Dryden, Pope, Swift, Addison, Steele and Fielding were regaling readers with their caustic, acerbic wit. Vanity Fair explores the ideas of transient, materialistic desires and their harmful effects on people. His biting satirical portrait of the selfish and street smart Becky and her overwhelming desire for wealth and social success is one of the masterpieces in English literature. Thackeray's brilliant gifts for slicing through the pretensions and facades that human beings hide behind remain one of the reasons why Vanity Fair is even today considered a must read classic.

Publisher

Loyal Books

Category

arts · comedy

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

28 Oct 2024

Latest episode

2 Jan 2025

Latest episodes

67 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   2 Jan 2025

   01 – Chiswick Mall

   This episode introduces William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" with a focus on the setting of Chiswick Mall.

2. 

   1 Jan 2025

   02 – In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign

   This episode explores William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," focusing on Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley as they prepare for new beginnings.

3. 

   31 Dec 2024

   03 – Rebecca is in Presence of the Enemy

   This episode explores William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," focusing on Rebecca's encounter with the enemy, offering insights into character dynamics.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 38 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

62

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

32

Contact Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

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