These two writers were the leading English novelists of the runeteenth century. While Dickens preferred to write about the sufferings of the poor people in England, Thackeray chose to expose the follies of the rich. He described his book “Vanity Fair” as a novel without a hero. Thackeray described men and women just as they are in reallife -neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but all of them are deceived or deluded in some way. He wrote about the social life of the upper classes of England 170 years ago, at the time when Napoleon Bonaparte was threatening the peace of Europe.
The title “Vanity Fair” comes from the town of Vanity in John Bunyan‘s book “The Pilgrim’s Progress”. Bunyan escribes a year-long fair held in that town, where hawkers sold fine houses,land, positions, titles, kingdoms, evil pleasures and delights of all kinds. The phrase “Vanity Fair” now means the world with its glittering temptations and pleasures which always deceive human
beings. In his book, Thackeray describes a world peopled by greedy, pompous, self-satisfied men and women who live without God, without religion, and without moral scruples of any kind.In this edition, Thackeray‘s story has been simplified so that students may enjoy reading it without having to use the dictionary too often. However, the author has tried to keep to Thackeray’s unique way of telling the story and of describing the characters of people, hoping that the reader may understand at least a little of the geruus that made hackeray stand out amongst 19th century novelists.
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