Oh. 
I must have missed that part in the introduction.
Legolas Send a noteboard - 18/05/2011 07:21:29 PM
I must have missed that part in the introduction.
Legolas Send a noteboard - 18/05/2011 07:21:29 PM
or, rather: he was known, but under a different name. That as a problem in the beginning of the publication of Vanity Fair.
Makes it all the more remarkable how successful the book became, then.
The rivalry between Dickens and Thackeray is actually interesting stuff. It seems to have been mainly one-sided (all in Thackeray's head. He lagged some way behind Dickens. But yes, he was very successful with Vanity Fair. Interestingly, it was published almost simultaneously (concurrently?) with Dickens' Dombey (and by the same publisher, at that), but the latter got a bit of a head start, and a lot of people would only buy one instalment a month.
The introduction quotes their approximate incomes, let me see if I can find that... ah yes.
"Riding Vanity Fair's success he became, with Dickens, the best paid novelist of the age. Not quite as well paid, admittedly. Bradbury and Evans came to reckon his maximum price per monthly part at £250 and Dickens' an astronomical £600. But for many discriminating readers, Thackeray was the more highly regarded of the two."
So yeah, certainly some way behind Dickens in terms of success.
Thackeray also wrote under a continued threat of cancellation, and did not know when he started how many instalments he would have to write (Dickens at this point was well known enough to be able to dictate that sort of thing and therefore plan ahead). It explains some of the idiosyncracies of Vanity Fair, but it also makes it rather more impressive, I think.
It explains why the third quarter has its weak passages, I guess - but then, the same is true for authors who didn't write in installments, like Trollope.
I have always preferred Becky to Amelia. Amelia, like all angel-women, annoy me. Especially when they are blind to the obviously wonderful men in their lives.
I don't know that I do, actually, even though I expected to, beforehand. Amelia is certainly naive and not too bright, but I couldn't sympathize overmuch with Becky either.
Still, having now read the supposed inspiration for Trollope's Lizzie Eustace in The Eustace Diamonds, it's clear that Becky Sharp is a far better character, and a great deal less annoying.
The illustrations are good.
That they are.
I tend to like the footnotes as well, though. While satire may not have the same effect in an older book, the combination of new information and a kick at it tends to appeal to me.
Sure, they can be interesting, but they generally don't succeed in making the modern reader laugh at the joke or satire, as a contemporary reader who needed no explanation might have done.
I am always fascinated by what people consider Dickens' best books. It varies terribly.
Well, I haven't actually read those, but I thought that seemed to be the consensus, particularly Tale of Two Cities. I certainly hope I've yet to read Dickens' best works; if Oliver Twist or A Christmas Carol are his best, I think Thackeray wins the rivalry hands down.
William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair
- 17/05/2011 11:19:50 PM
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What version was yours?
- 18/05/2011 05:34:43 AM
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From the "The World's Classics" series by Oxford University Press.
- 18/05/2011 06:27:27 PM
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He wasn't actually known for his writings in Punch
- 18/05/2011 12:21:37 PM
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Oh. I must have missed that part in the introduction.
- 18/05/2011 07:21:29 PM
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I must have missed that part in the introduction.
- 18/05/2011 07:21:29 PM
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they may not have mentioned it
- 18/05/2011 07:30:20 PM
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