Vanity Fair cover art

Vanity Fair

A Novel without a Hero

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Vanity Fair

By: William Makepeace Thackeray
Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
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About this listen

Vanity Fair, with its rich cast of characters, takes place on the snakes-and-ladders board of life. Amelia Sedley, daughter of a wealthy merchant, has a loving mother to supervise her courtship. Becky Sharp, an orphan, has to use her wit, charm, and resourcefulness to escape from her destiny as a governess. This she does ruthlessly, musing: "I think I could become a good woman, if I had £5,000 a year."

Thackeray’s story is set at the time of the battle of Waterloo, in which the Sedley fortunes are lost - and Amelia is back to square one - while Becky rises with contemptuous ease.

Public Domain (P)2013 Naxos AudioBooks Classics
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Absolutely loved it, I was caught up in the story and all the different voices!

brilliant

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I was a bit worried when I started to listen to this audio book. The prologue was meandering and very stylised in a dated way. But then the story kicked off and it was impossible to stop listening.

All the characters were horribly flawed people - and I wanted to throttle the "heroine" - but this just means the characters were well rendered by the writer.

There were a few parts that were lost on me as a modern reader - where a dramatic play/masque was performed by some of the characters - but overall it was very enjoyable.

An old-fashioned but enjoyable story

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I thoroughly enjoyed Vanity Fair and especially enjoyed Ms Sutton’s excellent performance. The story itself is long and detailed and traces the lives of the main protagonists against the backdrop of the wars against Napoleon and beyond. These characters are believable and at times hilarious. The prose is clever and almost poetic at times and the addition of confidential asides adds something. Overall, an excellent book, terrific characters and well worth the many enjoyable hours of escape to a time and place long passed.

A great classic tale with excellent characters.

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