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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Vanity Fair
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, a novel without a hero (1848)
Novel by *Thackeray, with his own illustrations, published in monthly parts from January 1847. It is a social panorama of the early 19C, following the ups and downs of two school friends from Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies in Chiswick. Amelia Sedley is virtuous and rich (daughter of a merchant) while Rebecca Sharp, known as Becky, is scheming and poor (orphaned child of an artist and a dancer). Both see fortunes come and go – whether through marriage, disinheritance, financial disaster or secret admirers – and both accompany their soldier husbands to Belgium just before *Waterloo.
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Only the death in the battle of Amelia's husband (George Osborne) prevents his elopement with Becky; and the discovery of this betrayal, years later, enables Amelia to shed her sentimental memories and to marry a more suitable long-standing admirer, William Dobbin. Meanwhile Becky has been living a suprisingly prosperous existence in London. The explanation emerges when her husband (Rawdon Crawley) discovers that she has a seedy old admirer, the rich Lord Steyne. Rejected by both, Becky acquires her final fortune after persuading a dying admirer to take out a life-insurance policy in her favour. She settles down to charitable good works in fashionable Bath and Cheltenham.
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