Vanity Fair

In the 1800s, three different versions of the magazine Vanity Fair were published. First, it was a comic weekly with a brief run that was situated in Manhattan and published from 1859 to 1863. Next, Vanity Fair was the name of a magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1868 to 1914. It was known as the pinnacle of the time's "society publications" and is best known for its humorous language and caricatures of affluent men (and occasionally women). The magazine's well-known illustrator, Sir Leslie ("Spy") Ward, was of the opinion that "Vanity Fair will be sought after as the most faithful mirror and record of the spirit of the times when the history of the Victorian Era comes to be recorded in true perspective." Finally, another American version that had been reimagined as a theater journal started publishing on a weekly basis in 1890.^[1]

The phrase "Vanity Fair" originally referred to the decadent fair described in John Bunyan's 1678 book The Pilgrim's Progress, which was described as "a place or scene of ostentation or empty, idle amusement and frivolity." In the 19th century, author William Makepeace Thackeray adopted the phrase to christen his satirical novel, serialized in Punch magazine and published in 1848.^[2]

Vanity Fair may refer to:

• Vanity Fair, a location in The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), by John Bunyan
• Vanity Fair (novel), 1848, by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Vanity Bonfire Fair, a fictional character from the 2005 novel Orphans of Chaos by John C. Wright

• Vanity Fair (1911 film), directed by Charles Kent
• Vanity Fair (1915 film), a silent film directed by Charles Brabin and made by the Edison Company
• Vanity Fair (1922 film), a silent British film directed by Walter Courtney Rowden
• Vanity Fair (1923 film), a lost silent feature film directed by Hugo Ballin and produced by Samuel Goldwyn, with Prizmacolor sequence
• Vanity Fair (1932 film), directed by Chester M. Franklin and starring Myrna Loy, with the story updated to make Becky Sharp a social-climbing governess
• Vanity Fair (2004 film), directed by Mira Nair and starring Reese Witherspoon

• Vanity Fair (Seiko Matsuda album)
• "Vanity Fair" (Mr. Bungle song)
• "Vanity Fair", a piece of orchestral music by Anthony Collins, composed in 1952
• "Vanity Fair", a song by Squeeze from East Side Story
• "Vanity Fair", a song by The Ocean Blue
• "Vanity Fair", a song by World Party from Egyptology
• "Vanity Fair", a song by Clairy Browne
• "Riding to Vanity Fair", a song by Paul McCartney from Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
• "Vanity Fair", a song for wind band by Percy Fletcher

• Vanity Fair (magazines), any of five magazines (listed chronologically):
  • Vanity Fair, American magazine, 1859–1863
  • Vanity Fair (British magazine), 1868–1914, famous for its caricatures
  • Vanity Fair (American magazine 1902–1904), an unrelated New York magazine published by The Commonwealth Publishing Company
  • Vanity Fair (American magazine 1913–1936), American magazine
  • Vanity Fair (magazine) (1983–present), a monthly American magazine of culture, fashion and politics

• Vanity Fair, a one-hour adaptation featuring Helen Hayes and Agnes Moorehead first broadcast on 7 January 1940 on Campbell Playhouse
• Vanity Fair, a half-hour adaptation with Joan Lorring as Becky Sharp first broadcast 6 December 1947 on Favorite Story
• Vanity Fair, a 1978 BBC Radio 4 ten-part serial with Sarah Badel as Becky, Timothy West as Joseph Sedley and Alec McCowen as William Thackeray
• Vanity Fair, a 2004 BBC Radio broadcast adaptation by Stephen Wyatt, starring Emma Fielding as Becky
• Vanity Fair, a 2019 BBC Radio 4 three-part adaptation by Jim Poyser with additional material by Al Murray

• Vanity Fair (1939 TV series), a British television series about fashion
• Vanity Fair (1956 TV series), a British miniseries on BBC starring Joyce Redman
• Vanity Fair (1967 TV serial), a British miniseries on BBC starring Susan Hampshire
• Vanity Fair (1978 TV series), a Hong Kong television series
• Vanity Fair (1987 TV serial), a British miniseries on BBC featuring James Saxon
• Vanity Fair (1998 TV serial), a British miniseries on BBC starring Natasha Little
• Vanity Fair (2018 TV series), a British miniseries on ITV starring Olivia Cooke

• Vanity Fair (underwear), a brand of underwear owned by Fruit of the Loom
• Vanity Fair, a brand of napkin owned by Georgia-Pacific

• Becky Sharp (film), a 1935 adaptation of Thackeray's novel starring Miriam Hopkins
• Vanity Fare, a 1960s UK pop/rock group

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Vanity Fair.
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