The text of this Norton Critical Edition of Thackeray's acclaimed 1848novel is based on the Garland edition, the text approved by the ModernLanguage Association.&nbsp; The text is fully annotated and is accompanied byall of the author's original illustrations as well as a textualappendix.<br /><br />"Backgrounds and Contexts" is arranged under three headings.&nbsp; "Compositionand Publication History" combines modern scholarship with contemporarymaterials to elucidate the novel's composition and publication historyand present different aspects of Thackeray's life and work.<br /><br />"Reception" reprints ten contemporary reviews, both published andunpublished, that suggest the tone of <em>Vanity Fair</em>'s initial reception.<br /><br />"Contexts" includes materials relating to governesses, historical novels,the Battle of Waterloo and the military, bankruptcy, regency fashions,and the London landscape, all of which figure prominently in the novel.<br /><br />Criticism is a collection of nine essays written between 1900 and 1990that reveal the developing response to <em>Vanity Fair</em>.&nbsp; William C.Brownell, David Cecil, G. Armour Craig, John Loofbourow, Peter K.Garrett, Richard Barickman, Susan MacDonald, Myra Stark, Ina Ferris,Catherine Peters, and James Phelan provide varied perspectives.<br /><br />A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.<br />