«On a broad and colourful canvas, extending from urban and rural England to Waterloo and the continental haunts of exiles, Thackeray gives us one of the greatest social-satirical novels in the language-one of the most entertaining and profound, and, in the person of Becky Sharp, we have one of literature's most resourceful, attractive, and amoral characters. Essentially a commentary on hypocrisy and those ethical principles to which society pays lip-service, «Vanity Fair» (1847-8) invites us to consider which is to blame: the opportunist or the society that makes opportunism necessary. This edition, which reproduces the text of the Oxford Thackeray enhanced by John Sutherland's lively introduction and notes, includes all of Thackeray's own illustrations.»
