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Vanity Fair  By  cover art

Vanity Fair

By: William Makepeace Thackeray
Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
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Publisher's summary

Now a major motion picture, Vanity Fair is one of the greatest of English novels, a vast satirical panorama of a materialistic society and a landmark in the history of realistic fiction.

Generally considered to be his masterpiece, Vanity Fair is Thackeray's 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, naive 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 resonates 150 years later with implications for our own times.

(P)1998 Blackstone Audiobooks
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about Vanity Fair

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb Version --- Highly Recommended

Davidson is a brilliant narrator. He is easy to listen to and renders the characters extremely well. I can still hear Rawdon Crawley's voice as if I am again listening to the book, when I observe things that pertain to his character's viewpoint on life, it was so well done.

Davidson appears to understand Thackeray's world view quite profoundly, as reflected in the excellent drama with which he reads each character.

The book is spellbinding and I am only sorry it was only 31 hours. I could have listened to much more.

I highly recommend this version of Vanity Fair.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Thackeray's prose doesn't always come across easily in narration; his sentences can twist and turn leaving the listener rather unsure of where he started. But, overall, the narrator does an incredible job with the book. Davidson has a distinct voice for each character, and some of them are brilliant. He captures Thackeray's ironic and sarcastic tone wonderfully. I highly recommend this audio version, although the experience can be improved at times by having a copy of the book at hand, to read along through some of the more intricate bits of prose.

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18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Frederick Davidson

Although I love this book, I would never buy another audiobook read by Fredrick Davidson. His voice is extremely annoying to me. He inflects each sentence up at the end, as if each sentence were a question. I should have paid more attention to the reviewer who describes Fredrick Davidson's voice as "sarcastic" - his voice does sound sarcastic, in the worst most affected way, his sarcasm takes away from the great irony and humor of the book. Besides his performance, which I don't like, his voice has a naturally grating tone to it.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Frederick Davidson is a master!

It's true that Thackeray sometimes goes on and on; but what fun! Davidson (who also reads as David Case) perfectly captures the tone of Thakeray's gentle and on-the money satire of the social foibles and pretensions of the time. His ability to give a clearly distinct voice to each character makes listening particularly rich and easy to follow. He makes the two main characters -- Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley -- absolutely come alive. My selection of books to buy is highly influenced by my admiration of this superb narrator.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Hilarious reader

A very amusing, witty portrait of English society in the 19th century. The actor doing the read is hilarious, adding an acid sarcasm in his voicing of the characters.

The only problem with Vanity Fair is that it is very long, since it was written for serial publication and Thackerey, who was a broke aristorcrat, was paid by the word. As much as I enjoyed it, I was desperate to get to the end.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Perfection

There could not be a better marriage in fiction or fact than the one between Thackeray's scintillating text and Frederick Davidson's delivery, lightly ironic and detached with the occasional moment of real pathos (the unforgettable Waterloo battle scene), as if the author himself were speaking. I loved this more than any other audiobook I have read - at 29 hours it was way too short, never dragging for a minute. Character and incident abound, but the moments of "editorialising" that Thackeray occasionally allows himself are like nuggets of pure gold, and throughout Mr Davidson is the ringmaster of the great fair.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Not Bad

I really enjoyed the first three sections of the book, but when it came to section four, I could not understand what else the author would have to say about the story for 5 more hours. I thought 3 out of the last 5 hours of listening could have been cut completely out and the story would have been better for it. All in all, I am very glad I can say I finished it, and the story really is of merit, but I wished the end had not dragged on so.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

A difficult swim despite Davidson's best efforts

I do enjoy listening to Frederick Davidson but Vanity Fair is a tough book on the ears though Davidson really gives it his best. The listener must keep in mind that Hawthorne's comments and asides throughout the book make him as much a part of the story as the characters he's writing about.

For example, it's not unusual for the first character to remark upon the second and then Hawthorne remark upon the first, the second or both or more! While a reader can quickly switch gears in the narrative, the voice of the author himself is missing in Davidson's performance (and, to my knowledge, everyone else's reading as well) and that prompts me to often rewind the iPod again and again to catch what I missed the first time (not easy to do when driving!).

The audio is crisp and lacks that "old cassette tape" sound but you might find this a better read than a listen.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Horrible narration

love the book, movie wasn't bad either. But this narrator is annoying... he speaks as a street teenager...I lasted literally 2 min of this audio book...
Disappointed 😞

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

great

Great story, great narrator, his droll accent captures Thackeray's wit. It's long, but worth it.

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1 person found this helpful