Publisher's Synopsis
is a novel by English writer William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in 1847-48, satirizing society in the UK in the early nineteenth century. The book's title comes from the allegorical story of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, first published in 1678 and still widely read at the time of the Thackeray novel. The Vanity Fair refers to a stop on the pilgrim's progress: an endless show in a town called Vanity, who claimed to represent the sinful man's attraction for worldly things. The novel is now considered a classic, and has inspired several film adaptations, the most recent being the 2004 film starring Reese Witherspoon. In 2003, Vanity Fair was included in the survey The Big Read BBC about the "most beloved novel" in the UK.
