ABSTRACT
Thackeray was thirty-five in 1846, and he was undoubtedly discontented with his lot; and, seeing his juniors and inferiors pass him in the race for popularity and fame, he thought that at last the time had come for him to exert his great powers to make his name a household word. It was such thoughts as these that led, early in January 1847, to the appearance of the first number of Vanity Fair. But though Vanity Fair may not have appealed to the general public as Dickens and Lever did, yet it is plain that among the literary class, and in what is known as ‘Society,’ Thackeray had now established a foremost place. Such high-class journals as the Spectator specially praised the novel as it was coming out in serial parts. Before Vanity Fair was finished, Thackeray had become a personage, and was in his proper place as one of the foremost men of the day.
