Vanity Fair

Introduction by Robbie

Vanity Fair was the fourth book in the reading sequence, begun in December 2022 after Middlemarch. Thackeray's great panoramic satire — subtitled “A Novel Without a Hero” — brought a sharper, more playful tone to the daily readings, with its knowing narrator and its unforgettable Becky Sharp.

The reading ran from December 2022 through April 2023, covering sixty-seven chapters. After the moral seriousness of Eliot, Thackeray's wit and worldliness made for a lively change of pace, though the novel's depths reveal themselves gradually.

Thackeray writes as a showman, addressing the reader directly, pulling back the curtain on his characters' vanities. Read aloud, this voice comes alive in a particular way — conspiratorial, amused, and sometimes unexpectedly tender.