Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair / by William Makepeace Thackeray; read by Frederick Davidson. — Ashland : Blackstone Audio, 2006.

1 sound file (29 hrs, 25 min.)

Software version: OverDrive Media Console 1.0

File size: 423020 KB

ISBN: 0786142200

1. British -- Europe -- Fiction. 2. England -- Fiction. 4. Humorous stories. 5. Satire. 6. Social classes -- Fiction.

823.8

A biting and witty satire on English social life and customs during the first part of the nineteenth century, its subtitle is “a novel without a hero,” and it could also be added without heroines. Yet the book’s two central characters, the virtuous but dim and naive Amelia Sedley and the amoral, clever, congenial Becky Sharp both display admirable and distressing qualities as they rise, fall, and rise again in society. One of the great virtues of Vanity Fair is that while it is told in hilarious prose, with short burst of genuine pathos, it was praised by its contemporaries as a thoroughly realistic account of the society that it portrays.

Davidson’s dry and somewhat snooty tone as a narrator is a perfect match for Thakeray’s prose. His choice of voices for the characters and his skill as an actor are excellent. It is hard to imagine a better match of reader and text. This edition is twenty-nine and a half hours of pure delight for the listener.