At Vanity Fair : from Bunyan to Thackeray

Resource Information

The work At Vanity Fair : from Bunyan to Thackeray represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in European University Institute. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

At Vanity Fair : from Bunyan to Thackeray

Title remainder

from Bunyan to Thackeray

Statement of responsibility

Kirsty Milne

Creator

• Milne, Kirsty

Subject

• Bunyan, John, 1628-1688
• English fiction -- History and criticism
• Metaphor in literature
• Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863

Language

eng

Summary

At Vanity Fair tells the story of Bunyan's powerful metaphor, exploring how Vanity Fair was transformed from an emblem of sin and persecution into a showcase for celebrity, wealth and power. This literary history, focusing on reception, adaptation and influence, traces the fictional representation of Vanity Fair over three centuries from John Bunyan's masterpiece, The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), to William Makepeace Thackeray's own Vanity Fair (1847–8). It explores the influence of anonymous journalists and booksellers alongside well-known authors including Ben Jonson, Samuel Richardson and Thomas Carlyle. Over time, Bunyan's dystopian fantasy has been altered and repurposed to characterise consumer capitalism, channelling memories that inform and unsettle modern hedonism. By tracking the idea of 'Vanity Fair' against this shifting background, the book illuminates the relationship between the individual and the collective imagination, between what is culturally available and what is creatively impelled.--

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

UkCbUP

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Series statement

Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks