VANITY FAIR

This Norton Critical Edition of Thackeray's acclaimed novel is based upon the text approved by the Modern Language Association. The text is fully annotated and is accompanied by all of the author's original illustrations as well as textual appendix.Background and Contexts is arranged under three headings. Composition and Publication History combines modern scholarship with contemporary materials to elucidate the novel's composition and publication history and to highlight different aspect's ofThackeray's life and work. Reception reprints ten contemporary reviews, both published and unpublished, which suggests Vanity Fair's initial reception. Contexts includes materials relating to governesses, historical novels, the Battle of Waterloo and the military, bankruptcy, regency fashions, and the London landscape, all of which figure prominently in the novel. Criticism collects nine essays from 1900 to 1990 that reveal the developing response to Vanity Fair. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included.