Böcker av William Makepeace Thackeray

When the Shabby Genteel Story was first reprinted with other stories and sketches by William Makepeace Thackeray, the following note was appended to it:"It was my intention to complete the little story, of which only the first part is here written. Perhaps novel-readers will understand, even from the above chapters, what was to ensue. Caroline was to be disowned and deserted by her wicked husband; that abandoned man was to marry somebody else; hence, bitter trials and grief, patience and virtue, for poor little Caroline, and a melancholy ending - as how should it have been gay? The tale was interrupted at a sad period of the writer's own life. The colors are long since dry; the artist's hand is changed. It is best to leave the sketch, as it was when first designed seventeen years ago. The memory of the past is renewed as he looks at it - die Bilder froher Tage Und manche liebe Schatten steigen auf." Mr. Brandon, a principal character in this story, figures prominently in The Adventures of Philip, under his real name of Brand Firmin; Mrs. Brandon, his deserted wife, and her father, Mr. Gann, are also introduced; thus The Adventures of Philip can be considered a sequel to A Shabby Genteel Story.

Stephen Fry narrates this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of the famous Victorian comic novel. Orphan Becky Sharp and wealthy Amelia Sedley are best friends at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies. On leaving school, ambitious, social-climbing Becky looks for a rich man to support her, while the sweet-natured Amelia meets her old friend Dobbin, who is instantly captivated. Becky takes a job in the service of Sir Pitt Crawley, and uses her charm to hook his dashing son. However, marriage to Captain Rawdon of the Guards does not provide the fortune she seeks. Meanwhile, Amelia rejects the faithful Dobbin and becomes engaged to the handsome George Osborne - but destiny has some shocks in store for her, too. As time goes by, the girls' fortunes rise and fall. War, financial disaster and the ruin of her reputation leave the resourceful Beckyundaunted, but Amelia finds it harder to bear fate's blows. It will be many years before their story is played out, and their futures finally decided... William Makepeace Thackeray's classic satire of passion and ambition, first published in 1847 and 1848, is a deliciously ironic portrait of English society and its mores. This engaging 2004 radio production, published for the first time on audio, features a distinguished cast including Emma Fielding as Becky Sharp, Katy Cavanagh as Amelia and Toby Jones as Jos Sedley. Duration: 5 hours approx

After first appearing as a serial in brilliant yellow covers, Vanity Fair, 'a novel without a hero', was published in full in 1848. A panoramic and biting satire, it was the first of William Makepeace Thackeray's works to bear his own name. This edition includes his original illustrations and preface.

Set during the Napoleonic wars, Vanity Fair follows Becky Sharp as she cuts a swathe through Regency society. War, money, and national identity are the themes of Thackeray's great satirical novel, as it exposes a world on the make. In Becky, Thackeray created one of the most memorable female characters in Victorian fiction.

Set in the second half of the eighteenth century, Barry Lyndon is the fictional autobiography of an adventurer and rogue whom the reader is led to distrust from the very beginning. Born into the petty Irish gentry, and outmanoeuvred in his first love-affair, a ruined Barry joins the British army. After service in Germany he deserts and, after a brief spell as a spy, pursues the career of a gambler in the dissolute clubs and courts of Europe. In adetermined effort to enter fashionable society he marries a titled heiress but finds he has met his match. First published in 1844, Barry Lyndon is Thackeray's earliest substantial novel and in some ways his most original, reflecting his views of the true art of fiction: to represent a subject, however unpleasant, with accuracy and wit, and not to moralize. The text is that of George Sainsbury's 1908 Oxford edition which restores passages cut when the novel was revised in 1856. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

'I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year' Becky Sharp is a poor orphan when she first makes friends with the lovely Amelia Sedley at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies.

These letters have been selected according to their ability to convey the essential biographical developments of a very interesting life, and their ability to represent highly characteristic verbal and pictorial expressions of a great man of letters.

Set in the years before and after Waterloo, the novel tells the parallel stories of two schoolfriends - the quiet, long-suffering Amelia and her brilliant, scheming friend, Becky Sharp. The novel portrays all the corruption and decadence of 19th-century England.

Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two contrasting but inter-linked lives. Through the retiring Amelia Sedley and the brilliant Becky Sharp, Thackeray examines the position of women in an intensely exploitative male world.