Vanity Fair (Frederick Davidson) - William Makepeace Thackeray

Written by William Makepeace Thackeray
Read by Frederick Davidson
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Release date: January 1, 2006
Duration: 29:53:57

“Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?”

Generally considered to be Thackeray’s masterpiece, Vanity Fair is a resplendent social satire that exposes the greed and corruption raging in England during the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars.

Subtitled A Novel without a Hero, it traces the changing fortunes of two unforgettable women: the scheming opportunist Becky Sharp—one of literature’s most resourceful, engaging, and amoral heroines—and her foil, the faithful but naïve Amelia Sedley. Amid the swirl of London’s posh ballrooms and affairs of love and war, their fortunes rise and fall. Thackeray’s subversive, comic attack on the hypocrisy and “dismal roguery” of an avaricious world still resonates, more than 150 years later, with implications for our own times.

This one of the most recorded books. We have several reading on ABB, take your choice and compare. Frederick Davidson, aka David Case, brings an upper-class British style to the reading. You either like his readings or hate them.

“Davidson has a distinct voice for each character, and some of them are brilliant. He captures Thackeray’s ironic and sarcastic tone wonderfully.”

Becky Sharp is one of literature, and readers favorite characters. When movies were trying out the new full process Technicolor, Becky Sharp (1935) became the first full length film. A snippit of it was broadcast on LA television when UCLA finished restoring the first part.