Facts About Vanity Fair: A Novel Without A Hero

Vanity Fair: A Novel Without A Hero was a very popular novel, written by William Makepeace Thackeray. Thackeray was English writer and this novel was published in 1847 to 1848. Vanity Fear was all about the satirizing of the society that existed in Britain during the early 19th century. William Thackeray got the name for his book from an allegorical story called The Pilgrim’s Progress that was first published in 1678. The author of this story was John Bunyan.

Couple of facts about Vanity Fair:

• This novel is now considered to be a true classic and has even inspired several film adaptations.
• Vanity Fair has the honor of being listed on the BBC’s The Big Read poll for the UK’s “best loved novel”.
• The author of Vanity Fair got the idea to create the novel from reading Pilgrim’s Progress. Pilgrim’s Progress had a town called Vanity in its short story and there was a never-ending fair in this town.
• The title page for the first edition in book form was drawn by Thackeray himself.
• When William Thackeray first sent some chapters from his novel for publication, It wasn’t accepted at first by publishers. However, eventually it was published as a chronicle, in which parts of it would be published on a monthly basis starting in mid 1846.
• Vanity Fair being published as a chronicle proved to be very successful.Thackeray earned a lot from this novel and became a famous.
• His book didn’t appear in volume format until 1848.
• The two main characters in the novel titled Vanity Fair are Amelia Sedley and Rebecca (Becky) Sharp.
• The character of Rebecca (Becky) Sharp is that of an anti-heroine, as opposed to the character of Amelia Sedley. Becky Sharp is considered to be highly intelligent, has a gift for satire, and is able to draw people into her. Amelia Sedley is far from being a conventional heroine type character.She is described as being passive, naive, and someone who does little to help herself.

Vanity Fair is a true classic. It is a classic novel because it entertains, it teachers, and at the very same time has a profound message seldom found among other books in the literary world.