Editing Vanity Fair (novel) (section)

===Contemporaneous reception===
The style is highly indebted to [[Henry Fielding]].<ref name=suthvf/> Thackeray meant the book to be not only entertaining but also instructive, an intention demonstrated through the book's narration and through Thackeray's private correspondence. A letter to his editor at ''[[Punch, or the London Charivari|Punch]]'' expressed his belief that "our profession... is as serious as the [[parson]]'s own".<ref name=poohcorner>{{harvp|Milne|2015|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8lEQCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA108 108]}}.</ref> He considered it his own coming-of-age as a writer{{efn|To a German visitor who told him he had learned to read English from ''Vanity Fair'', Thackeray replied "And that's where I learned to write it".{{sfnp|Wilson & al.|1970|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Z-U2aQz1NqgC&pg=PA85 85]}}}} and greatest work.<ref name=house>{{harvp|Wilson & al.|1970|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Z-U2aQz1NqgC&pg=PA86 86]}}.</ref>

Critics hailed the work as a literary treasure before the last part of the serial was published. In her correspondence, [[Charlotte Brontë]] was effusive regarding his illustrations as well: "You will not easily find a second Thackeray. How he can render, with a few black lines and dots, shades of expression, so fine, so real; traits of character so minute, so subtle, so difficult to seize and fix, I cannot tell—I can only wonder and admire... If Truth were again a goddess, Thackeray should be her high priest."{{sfnp|Wilson & al.|1970|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Z-U2aQz1NqgC&pg=PA8 8]}}

The early reviewers took the debt to Bunyan as self-evident and compared Becky with Pilgrim and Thackeray with Faithful.<ref name=poohcorner/> Although they were superlative in their praise,<ref>See, e.g., ''[[The Times]]'' review of 10 July 1848.</ref> some expressed disappointment at the unremittingly dark portrayal of human nature, fearing Thackeray had taken his dismal metaphor too far. In response to these critics, Thackeray explained that he saw people for the most part as "abominably foolish and selfish".{{sfnp|Ray|1946|p=309}}

The unhappy ending was intended to inspire readers to look inward at their own shortcomings. Other critics took notice of or exception to the social subversion in the work; in his correspondence, Thackeray stated his criticism was not reserved to the upper class: "My object is to make every body engaged, engaged in the pursuit of Vanity Fair and I must carry my story through in this dreary minor key, with only occasional hints here and there of better things—of better things which it does not become me to preach".<ref name=thisonegoestoeleven>{{harvp|Milne|2015|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8lEQCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA111 111]}}.</ref>