Vanity Fair Annotated

by William Makepeace Thackeray

The Rector's wife wrote a sermon for her husband about the vanity of military glory and the prosperity of the wicked,

O, my dear brethren and fellow- sojourners in Vanity Fair, which among you does not know and suffer under such benevolent despots?

But what avail all these accomplishments, in Vanity Fair, to girls who are short, poor, plain, and have a bad complexion?

and who from her wit, talent, and energy, indeed merited a place of honour in Vanity Fair.

out of the busy struggle of Vanity Fair.

above all, there were no humble words to soothe vanity outraged and furious, or bring to its natural flow the poisoned, angry blood.

fell to gambling, and gaiety, and love-making, as people of Vanity Fair will do.

Which of us is there can tell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for others, and how selfish our love is?

no man in this Vanity Fair of ours so little observant as not to think sometimes about the worldly affairs of his acquaintances,

and his absurd vanity in fancying every woman whom he came near was in love with him.

Death's-head which figured in the repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic memorial of Vanity Fair.

brother, the gifts and pleasures of Vanity Fair cannot be held of any great account, and that it is probable … but we are wandering out of the domain of the story.

I know no sort of lying which is more frequent in Vanity Fair than this, and it may be remarked how people who practise it take credit to themselves for their hypocrisy, and fancy that they are exceedingly virtuous and praiseworthy, because they are able to deceive the world with regard to the extent of their means.

There are other very well-meaning people whom one meets every day in Vanity Fair who are surely equally oblivious.

(assuming that any Vanity Fair feelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound)

for so it was that Becky felt the Vanity of human affairs,

but the mere sense of wrong makes very few people unhappy in Vanity Fair.

He would like to have done with life and its vanity altogether—so

So these two were each exemplifying the Vanity of this life, and each longing for what he or she could not get.

Some people ought to have mutes for servants in Vanity Fair—mutes who could not write.

These are the kinds of epitaphs which men pass over one another in Vanity Fair.

Sometimes he knew her and Father Mole, her director and companion; oftener he forgot her, as he had done wife, children, love, ambition, vanity.

but in Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked at indulgently.

what a high and noble appreciation of Gentlewomanhood there must have been in Vanity Fair,

the elderly sultanas of our Vanity Fair should drive up in closed litters, descend in a covered way, and make their curtsey to the Sovereign under the protection of lamplight.

any present lady of Vanity Fair would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous attire ever worn,

it must be owned, of the very highest reputation in Vanity Fair.

Lady Gaunt held the very highest rank in Vanity Fair.

The times are such that one scarcely dares to allude to that kind of company which thousands of our young men in Vanity Fair are frequenting every day,

By heavens it is pitiful, the bootless love of women for children in Vanity Fair.

It is all vanity to be sure, but who will not own to liking a little of it?

That is a vanity, but may every man who reads this have a wholesome portion of it through life, I beg: aye, though my readers were five hundred thousand.

It is currently reported that even in the very inmost circles, they are no happier than the poor wanderers outside the zone; and Becky, who penetrated into the very centre of fashion and saw the great George IV face to face, has owned since that there too was Vanity.

what a howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling Vanity Fair would be!

He ran across the streets and the great squares of Vanity Fair, and at length came up breathless opposite his own house.

May she flourish as she deserves—she appears no more in our quarter of Vanity Fair.

She has deceived her husband, as she has deceived everybody; her soul is black with vanity, worldliness, and all sorts of crime.

Feasting, drinking, ribaldry, laughter, go on alongside of all sorts of other occupations in Vanity Fair—the

But before that evening was over it was talked of at fifty dinner-tables in Vanity Fair.

We all know how charitable the world is, and how the verdict of Vanity Fair goes when there is a doubt.

I can see Vanity Fair yawning over it d'avance.

She slaved, toiled, patched, and mended, sang and played backgammon, read out the newspaper, cooked dishes, for old Sedley, walked him out sedulously into Kensington Gardens or the Brompton Lanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles and affectionate hypocrisy, or sat musing by his side and communing with her own thoughts and reminiscences, as the old man, feeble and querulous, sunned himself on the garden benches and prattled about his wrongs or his sorrows.

He coaxed, wheedled, cajoled, and complimented Jos Sedley with a perseverance and cordiality of which he was not aware himself, very likely; but some men who have unmarried sisters or daughters even, may remember how uncommonly agreeable gentlemen are to the male relations when they are courting the females; and perhaps this rogue of a Dobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy.

Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity he would have been jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that fascinating Bengal Captain.

what a memento of Life, Death, and Vanity it is—that

life and disappointment and vanity sank away from under him.

There's my hand, sir, though I little thought that my flesh and blood was living on you—" and the pair shook hands, with great confusion on Major Dobbin's part, thus found out in his act of charitable hypocrisy.

Who is ever missed in Vanity Fair?

Whereupon Kirsch answered him in the English language or in such an imitation of it as he could command—for though he was familiar with all languages, Mr. Kirsch was not acquainted with a single one, and spoke all with indifferent volubility and incorrectness.

There are things we do and know perfectly well in Vanity Fair, though we never speak of them: as the Ahrimanians worship the devil, but don't mention him: and a polite public will no more bear to read an authentic description of vice than a truly refined English or American female will permit the word breeches to be pronounced in her chaste hearing.