Book Description
In Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, the advantaged Amelia Smedley is in stark contrast to the poor, but sharp-witted Becky Sharp. However, fate is not always kind as their lives become entwined with the likes of the coarse bully, Sir Pitt Crawley and his brother.
From AudioFile
The incomparable Miriam Margolyes applies her story-telling and histrionic gifts to this classic satire of two young English women, one bad but clever and the other good but stupid, who come to no good during the Napoleonic Wars. The abridgers have cut a bit too much at the expense of the characterizations. Although sounding somewhat forced, Margolyes, as always, gives an excellent performance. Y.R.
About Author
William Makepeace Thackeray, whose satiric novels are often regarded as the great upper-class counterpart to Dickens's panoramic depiction of lower-class Victorian society, was born on July 18, 1811, in Calcutta, India. His father, a prosperous official of the British East India Company, died four years later, and at the age of six Thackeray was sent to England to be educated. After graduating from the Charterhouse School in London, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1829 but left the following year without taking a degree. After reading law for a short time at the Middle Temple he moved to Paris in 1832 to study art. Although he eventually abandoned the idea of painting as a career, Thackeray continued to draw throughout his life, illustrating many of his own works. When financial reversals wiped out his inheritance, he resettled in London and turned to journalism for a livelihood. By then he had married Isabella Shawe, a young Irishwoman with whom he had three daughters.
Thackeray's earliest literary success, The Yellowplush Correspondence, a group of satiric sketches written in the guise of a cockney footman's memoirs, was serialized in Fraser's Magazine beginning in 1837. Catherine (serialized 1839-40; published 1869), his first novel, parodied the crime stories popular in Victorian England. Under the name Michael Angelo Titmarsh, the most famous of his many pseudonyms, Thackeray turned out The Paris Sketch Book (1840) and The Irish Sketch-Book (1843), two popular volumes of travel writing. The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844), which chronicles the adventures of an Irish knave in eighteenth-century England, marked his first serious attack on social pretension. In The Book of Snobs (1848), a collection of satiric portraits originally published in Punch magazine (1846-47), he lampooned the avarice and snobbery occasioned by the Industrial Revolution.
Vanity Fair, Thackeray's resplendent social satire exposing the greed and corruption raging in England during the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, brought him immediate acclaim when it appeared in Punch beginning in 1847. "The more I read Thackeray's works," wrote Charlotte Bronte, "the more certain I am that he stands alone—alone in his sagacity, alone in his truth, alone in his feeling (his feeling, though he makes no noise about it, is about the most genuine that ever lived on a printed page), alone in his power, alone in his simplicity, alone in his self-control. Thackeray is a Titan. . . . I regard him as the first of modern masters."
Book Dimension :
length: (cm)19.8 width:(cm)12.6
《周末》内容简介:★没有理由失望。我们生活在流亡中。★《朗读者》现象级畅销原著作者、德国当代文坛大家施林克作品 ★回望昔日行
《不安之书》内容简介:本书是葡萄牙知名作家费尔南多·佩索阿用十几年书写的几百个随笔片段,也是一部未完成之作,由众多研究专家
2011年中国青春文学精选 本书特色 省登宇主编的《2011年中国青春文学精选》囊括了活跃在当下的主要的青春写手和他们的代表作品,称得上是年度青春文学的名家汇展...
万物既聪慧又奇妙 本书特色 新婚燕尔的乡村兽医吉米•哈利被迫穿上军装,身患恐高症的他竟然当了飞行员!拔牙历险记、空中飞鞋…这个菜鸟新兵依...
布朗神父探案故事 本书特色 这是以矮个子、圆乎脸天主教神父布朗为主人公的短篇侦探推理小说,《布朗神父探案全集(上下)》由g.k.切斯特顿所著,从《蓝宝石...
《杭州搁浅》内容简介:当代推理作家拟南芥长篇新锐之作《杭州搁浅》 废土设定 科幻悬疑 崩坏的废墟之城 末日的倾城之恋 杭州城遭遇
警戒解除 本书特色 (“梅赛德斯先生”三部曲精彩收官!变态杀手和退休警探双料主角终极对决!)经典的斯蒂芬·金。人物无比真实,令人毛骨悚然;故事异常好读,情节反转...
爱情种植-全二册 本书特色 1、医学版《奋斗》,尽管身为有钱人的女儿,女主还是要靠自己的努力奋斗。这是一个基调非常阳光、积极向上的文。2、医学背景也是重要看点之...
醒世恒言 本书特色 《醒世恒言》所收的四十篇话本中,利用宋元旧本改编的,已经很少了,可确证的不足七篇,其他都是明代的作品,可能大部分是冯梦龙自己的原创。因此,直...
奴儿 本书特色 阎连科,被文学界普遍认为是莫言之后*有希望获诺贝尔文学奖的中国作家之一,被誉为“荒诞现实主义大师”。被文学界普遍认为是莫言之后*有希望获诺贝尔文...
遍地枭雄 本书特色 枭雄不是英雄,善恶一步之遥,惊心清醒。这部王安忆*新出炉的力作,讲述的是当今时代背景中,一个普通人,因为一次意外事件而进入异样的境地,流落江...
《大国速度:中国高铁崛起之路》内容简介:※全景式展示中国高铁崛起之路。不虚美,不隐恶,客观反映事实;不因在位而阿谀,不因去
《猫城记·新韩穆烈德》内容简介:《猫城记》讲述一架飞往火星的飞机在碰撞到火星的一刹那机毁人亡,只剩下“我”幸存下来,却被一
站起来说话 本书特色 《站起来说话》——鲁迅文学奖得主,著名作家衣向东,继《牟氏庄园》后,再次书写家族传奇!主人公李家老三、曾是上海“青帮”老大的李牧涛在辛亥革...
四季红 本书特色 *蒋晓云:人生总是过了一山还有一山。无论是怎样的卑微,熬过去就会有新的篇章。 *张爱玲写的是二三十年代的都市女性,王安忆写的是一九四九年后留在...
《不便的便利店》内容简介:他最后的记忆始于火车站,一觉醒来,身上只剩裤子和衬衫,从此再没出过车站,渐渐连自己的名字也想不起
《悉达多》内容简介:本书收入黑塞著名的中篇小说三则,即《悉达多》、《盖特露德》和《克诺尔普》。《盖特露德》通过两个极具才华
《傲慢与偏见》内容简介:本书描写傲慢的单身青年达西与偏见的二小姐伊丽莎白、富裕的单身贵族彬格莱与贤淑的大小姐吉英之间的感情
《独异性社会:现代的结构转型》内容简介:独异才是王牌,不凡方获推崇,普遍标准之物没有吸引力。过着平凡日子的普通人被看作千篇
《越野赛跑》内容简介:在主人公步年生活的村庄附近,有一个叫作“天柱”的神秘之地。那里就像天然的昆虫博物馆,常年盘旋着各类虫