Fiction · 1848
Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair follows Becky Sharp, penniless and clawing her way up through Regency society, and her school friend Amelia Sedley, whose fortunes fall as Becky's rise. Becky marries the wastrel Rawdon Crawley, flatters her way into the drawing rooms of Lord Steyne and the Crawley family, and abandons her own son without a backward glance, while Amelia clings hopelessly to the memory of her worthless husband George Osborne and the devotion of the loyal William Dobbin. Thackeray's narrator interrupts constantly to remind the reader that not one of them is a hero.
Vanity Fair was serialized in twenty monthly parts from January 1847 to July 1848, subtitled "A Novel without a Hero," and made Thackeray's reputation as Dickens's great rival. He had worked for years as a journalist, caricaturist and contributor to Punch before its success; he went on to write The History of Pendennis and The Newcomes but never matched its scale again.
Bibliomancer publishes the 1848 text exactly as William Makepeace Thackeray wrote it.
Contents
- Introductory
- Chapter I — Chiswick Mall
- Chapter II — In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign
- Chapter III — Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy
- Chapter IV — The Green Silk Purse
- Chapter V — Dobbin of Ours
- Chapter VI — Vauxhall
- Chapter VII — Crawley of Queen’s Crawley
- Chapter VIII — Private and Confidential
- Chapter IX — Family Portraits
- Chapter X — Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends
- Chapter XI — Arcadian Simplicity
- Chapter XII — Quite a Sentimental Chapter
- Chapter XIII — Sentimental and Otherwise
- Chapter XIV — Miss Crawley at Home
- Chapter XV — In Which Rebecca’s Husband Appears for a Short Time
- Chapter XVI — The Letter on the Pincushion
- Chapter XVII — How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano
- Chapter XVIII — Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought
- Chapter XIX — Miss Crawley at Nurse
- Chapter XX — In Which Captain Dobbin Acts as the Messenger of Hymen
- Chapter XXI — A Quarrel About an Heiress
- Chapter XXII — A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon
- Chapter XXIII — Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass
- Chapter XXIV — In Which Mr. Osborne Takes Down the Family Bible
- Chapter XXV — In Which All the Principal Personages Think Fit to Leave Brighton
- Chapter XXVI — Between London and Chatham
- Chapter XXVII — In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment
- Chapter XXVIII — In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries
- Chapter XXIX — Brussels
- Chapter XXX — “The Girl I Left Behind Me”
- Chapter XXXI — In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister
- Chapter XXXII — In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close
- Chapter XXXIII — In Which Miss Crawley’s Relations Are Very Anxious About Her
- Chapter XXXIV — James Crawley’s Pipe Is Put Out
- Chapter XXXV — Widow and Mother
- Chapter XXXVI — How to Live Well on Nothing a Year
- Chapter XXXVII — The Subject Continued
- Chapter XXXVIII — A Family in a Very Small Way
- Chapter XXXIX — A Cynical Chapter
- Chapter XL — In Which Becky Is Recognized by the Family
- Chapter XLI — In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors
- Chapter XLII — Which Treats of the Osborne Family
- Chapter XLIII — In Which the Reader Has to Double the Cape
- Chapter XLIV — A Round-about Chapter between London and Hampshire
- Chapter XLV — Between Hampshire and London
- Chapter XLVI — Struggles and Trials
- Chapter XLVII — Gaunt House
- Chapter XLVIII — In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company
- Chapter XLIX — In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert
- Chapter L — Contains a Vulgar Incident
- Chapter LI — In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader
- Chapter LII — In Which Lord Steyne Shows Himself in a Most Amiable Light
- Chapter LIII — A Rescue and a Catastrophe
- Chapter LIV — Sunday After the Battle
- Chapter LV — In Which the Same Subject is Pursued
- Chapter LVI — Georgy is Made a Gentleman
- Chapter LVII — Eothen
- Chapter LVIII — Our Friend the Major
- Chapter LIX — The Old Piano
- Chapter LX — Returns to the Genteel World
- Chapter LXI — In Which Two Lights are Put Out
- Chapter LXII — Am Rhein
- Chapter LXIII — In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance
- Chapter LXIV — A Vagabond Chapter
- Chapter LXV — Full of Business and Pleasure
- Chapter LXVI — Amantium Irae
- Chapter LXVII — Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths
New editions
Never lose your place.
This book is free to read in full, and stays that way. Leave an address: one click confirms it and opens a free account, so your progress and bookmarks sync across every device. You'll also hear when the next restored edition enters the archive. Terminate at any time.
Subjects
About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
Source mind
About the author
1811–1863 · Victorian
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) was born in Calcutta and sent to England at six; he gambled away much of an inheritance at Cambridge, then tried painting in Paris before turning to journalism, writing under various pseudonyms for Fraser's Magazine and Punch. Vanity Fair (1847–48), serialized without his name attached at first, made his reputation as Dickens's great rival; Pendennis, Henry Esmond and The Newcomes followed, but he never matched its scale again. He died suddenly in London at fifty-two.
Adjacent records
