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Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
67 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsIf 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.
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Episodes
51 – In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader
November 13, 2023 00:00 - 59 minutes - 26.7 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
52 – In Which Lord Steyne Shows Himself In A Most Amiable Light
November 12, 2023 00:00 - 30 minutes - 13.4 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
53 – A Rescue And A Catastrophe
November 11, 2023 00:00 - 27 minutes - 12.4 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
54 – Sunday After the Battle
November 10, 2023 00:00 - 29 minutes - 13.4 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
55 – In Which the Same Subject is Pursued
November 09, 2023 00:00 - 39 minutes - 18.1 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
56 – Georgy is Made a Gentleman
November 08, 2023 00:00 - 29 minutes - 13.4 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
58 – Our Friend the Major
November 06, 2023 00:00 - 28 minutes - 12.4 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
59 – The Old Piano
November 05, 2023 00:00 - 27 minutes - 12.4 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
60 – Returns to the Genteel World
November 04, 2023 00:00 - 15 minutes - 6.68 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
61 – In Which Two Lights Are Put Out
November 03, 2023 00:00 - 37 minutes - 17.2 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
63 – In Which We Meet An Old Acquaintance
November 01, 2023 00:00 - 33 minutes - 15.3 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
64 – A Vagabond Chapter
October 31, 2023 00:00 - 49 minutes - 21.9 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
65 – Full of Business and Pleasure
October 30, 2023 00:00 - 23 minutes - 10.5 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com
67 – Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths
October 28, 2023 00:00 - 58 minutes - 26.7 MBMore great books at LoyalBooks.com