Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero

Bradbury and Evans, 1848. First edition, early issue in volume form. Contains two of the three issue points, the woodcut of Marquis of Steyne on 336 (suppressed in later issues), and "Mr. Pitt" for "Sir Pitt" on 453, bound without ads, but missing the heading on page 1 in rustic type.

"A novel without a hero," Vanity Fair follows the entangled adventures of two school friends, the gentle, trusting Amelia Sedley and the calculating Becky Sharp, as they come of age during the Napoleonic Wars. "Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history? Let us then step into the coach with the Russell-square party, and be off to the Gardens."

Good. Bound in contemporary three-quarter leather over marbled paper covered boards and raised bands on spine. Heavily rubbed and scuffed. Pages toned, foxing, staining browning to plates (as is typical), with occasional offsetting from images onto adjacent pages. The pages pictured are generally the worst. Frontispiece, illustrated title page, 38 full-page plates, and 150 steel and wood-engraved illustrations by the author throughout text.