Vanity Fair
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.
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43% recommend50% neutral7% critical
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What Hacker News says
- Not the original commenter but I'd include:
Vanity Fair by Thackeray
Mr Johnson by Joyce Cary
Lavengro and Romany Rye by George Borrow
The Descent of Woman by Elaine Morgan
Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Douglas Hofstadter et al.
Identity Crisis by Ben Elton
- I’m happy to see Standard Ebooks here! I’ve read their editions of Nostromo by Joseph Conrad and Vanity Fair by William Thackeray and the quality great. I recommend it if you’re interested in classic literature.
- The author of this article should read 'Vanity Fair' by Thackeray. It crystallizes the argument they're trying to make.
- Slight self promotion, but Standard Ebooks has a few of the classics, and a few more of the classic fiction available as nicely formatted and accessible PD ebooks (epub, Kobo variant epub, and Kindle formats for each):
- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/benjamin-franklin/the-auto...
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditation...
- Don Quixote by Cervantes: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/miguel-de-cervantes-saaved...
- Pride and Predudice by Jane Austen: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jane-austen/pride-and-prej...
- Vanity Fair by William Thackeray: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-makepeace-thackera...
- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens/david-copp...
- Washington Irving collection: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/washington-irving/the-sket...
- Father Goriot by Balzac: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/honore-de-balzac/father-go...
- The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/j-w-von-goethe/the-sorrows...
- Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/fyodor-dostoevsky/crime-an...
These are nearly always taken from the Gutenberg source transcriptions, but tidied up typographically and marked up using modern technologies. If you notice any problems with any of these we’ll happily take PRs!
- I'm almost at the end of Vanity Fair. It is long, surprisingly light, and psychologically astute. There's one passage where Thackeray nails the concept of cognitive dissonance so strikingly (100 years before Festinger) that it ought to be in textbooks. Many of his observations have made me laugh with their classic English wit. He also has one hell of an anti-heroine. This book reminded me why I used to love literature.
Also, Strangers to Ourselves by Timothy Wilson - a good book on research into unconscious thought processes.
- I like Vanity Fair subscribe to the magazine. It's named after a 19th century novel by Thackeray, a satire on society. I find that the magazine, like the book, mocks society and points out it's flaws, being hypocritical and opportunistic.
At the same time the magazine itself is opportunistic, and perhaps hypocritical. It's a very interesting magazine. Lots of good reading.
