William Makepeace Thackeray — Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero

London, Bradbury and Evans , 1848. First edition. Leather. A handsome first edition, early issue of William Makepeace Thackeray's first major work, a quintessential satire of life in early 19th-century Britain. First complete edition in book form. Early issue. Heading on p.1 not in rustic type, engraved title page dated 1848 and "Mr. Pitt" for "Sir Pitt" on p. 453. Lacking suppressed woodcut of Marquis of Steyne on p. 336. Lacking advertisement for the forthcoming "Great Hogarty Diamond" at front.The work was initially issued in 20 parts between January 1847 and July 1848 as a popular serial with distinctive canary-yellow covers, and it was printed as a bound volume by Bradbury & Evans in 1848, incorporating the author's own illustrations, and bearing his name on the title page for the first time. The novel gained him immediate critical acclaim.With an engraved frontispiece, additional illustrated title and thirty-eight plates after the author. Collated, complete.Bound in full blind-stamped calf. Final leaf (pp.623-4) supplied in facsimile and bound in. Renewed endpapers and blanks. Preserved in a red cloth-backed slipcase.Following the lives of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley during and after the Napoleonic Wars, the story is framed as a puppet play with a somewhat unreliable narrator. Reflecting Thackeray's interest in deconstructing his era's conventions regarding literary heroism, it is sometimes considered the "principal founder" of the Victorian domestic novel.A pleasing example of this celebrated title. Bound in full blind-stamped calf. Preserved in a red cloth-backed slipcase. Externally, smart, with minor rubbing to the extremities and slight darkening to the spine. Minor marks to the leather. Slipcase is marked, with minor rubbing. Internally, firmly bound. Pages are generally bright, with occasional scattered spots throughout. Plate at p. 109 marginally frayed at foot. Good . Ill.: William Makepeace Thackeray. Good .