William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero is Thackeray's best-known work, and it established his reputation as a master of social satire. The title is taken from Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, and it is, as Thackeray reveals in the preface, in the same manner a frankly moralistic novel. Posing as the Manager of the Performance, he reminds his readers to avoid simply passing through the emblematic Vanity Fair and to experience it in a "contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind," for everyone, including the author, is a part of the fair.