Why a Booktrail?
The Macmillan Collector’s Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles.
Vanity Fair
What you need to know before your trail
Brilliant anti-heroine Becky Sharp will do anything to climb to society’s loftiest heights and couldn’t be more different from her rich, sweet-natured schoolmate, Amelia Sedley. Their parallel lives are marked by love, lust, marriage, fortune and loss, in all their different guises, as they navigate the corrupt circus of upper-class Regency England.
Hailed as a literary masterpiece upon first publication, William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair has never waned in popularity and remains a highly entertaining satire of early nineteenth-century high society. This gorgeous edition includes an afterword by the prizewinning author and critic, Henry Hitchings.
Locations
Reset- England - Brighton
- G: Brighton Pier
- Belgium - Brussels
- H: Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History
- Germany /Hungary
- I: Pumpernickel /Budapest
Travel Guide
Becky Sharp’s London
The novel is set some 20 years before it was written and takes place from 1810 – 1820. Queen Victoria is on the throne and Napoleanic wars are taking place. Napolean would see defeat at Waterloo in 1815
In England the book switches between London and Brighton.
The book also goes crosses to Europe with visits to Paris, Rome, Brussels, and “Pumpernickel,” a small German town.
TV locations
There are many locations in and around London to visit.
Miss Pinkerton’s Academy for Young Ladies
Firmly based in Chiswick in the novel, but you’ll find the on-screen version at Squerryes Court, a manor house in Kent.
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
This was a popular location for a Georgian night out and featured circus performers, hot air balloons and all manner of entertainments. These scenes were filmed at Syon House.
Russell Square
One key location in both the novel and the TV programme is Russell Square in London, where Amelia Sedley and George Osborne’s families both live. Fitzroy Square was substituted as it had very similar architecture.
Brussels
“Check out the wonders of Brussels, where there is lovely shopping to be had if you’ve brought money!”
Brussels does have some very old buildings and it does have a strong military and navy heritage. However Budapest was used for filming.
Germany
“Ah, Pumpernickel – the jewel of this corner of Germany, where there are fun things to do and charming people to do them with!”
Pumpernickel is fictional so Budapest was used in the TV show
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
IF you love a good classic and let’s face it who doesn’t – this version of Vanity Fair should be on your list. It’s smaller and petit but that’s the beauty of it. It’s got a gorgeous cover and you know the great story you’re getting inside.
With the recent TV version of Vanity Fair on our screens at the moment, I think this gift edition is ideal if you can bear to give it away that is. I am a sucker for a good cover on a story I know and love.
The story is the classic we know and love and I just think Becky would really approve of the gild lettering and pale green background.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Vanity Fair
Destination : London, Brighton, Brussels, Germany Author/Guide: William Thackeray Departure Time: 1810 – 1820
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