VANITY FAIR. A Novel Without a Hero.

First edition in book form. Mixed issue. Association copy, extra illustrated with a signed and inscribed original pen and ink drawing by the author in the style of a title page tipped in. Contemporary, possibly a presentation binding, of half burgundy morocco binding and marbled paper covered boards, with five, gilt decorated raised bands and titles in gilt to the spine. All edges marbled. Frontispiece (with tissue guard), vignette title page, 38 black and white full page steel engravings, 149 woodcut illustrations throughout the text, and an original ink drawing by the author. A very good or better copy, the binding square and firm with just a little rubbing and scuffing to the boards, mainly at the edges. The inner hinges are cracked but holding firm. The contents, with a small bookplate on the front pastedown and some offsetting from the illustrations throughout, are otherwise clean and bright. The book is a mixed or later issue, with the first state 'Mr. Pitt' for 'Sir Pitt' present on page 493, but lacking the suppressed woodcut of the Marquis of Steyne on page 336, without the rustic type heading on page one and with the later state title page (dated 1849). The original drawing is in near fine condition, with one finger mark and one small spot to the right edge of the paper. An excellent, truly unique example.

William Makepeace Thackeray's original pen and ink drawing of a man reading to a little girl on a window seat is tipped in on the flyleaf and inscribed on the top left corner "With the author's best regards to / The Countess of Airlie". The recipient is Henrietta Blanche Ogilvy (née Stanley, 1830-1921), Countess of Airlie, wife of the 5th Earl of Airlie and daughter of the 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley and Henrietta Maria Dillon-Lee, who campaigned for education for women and helped to establish Girton College, the first women's college at the University of Cambridge. Henrietta Blache would later become the grandmother of Clementine Churchill and the great-grandmother of the Mitford sisters. Thackeray was a family friend of The Stanleys, and he was particularly close with Lady Stanley, who was known for her political salon and her wide intellectual circle that included Anthony Trollope, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Thomas Hughes; as well her eldest daughter Henrietta Blanche; friendships that were also held by Thackeray's daughter, the writer Anne Thackeray Ritchie, whose diaries list social calls with both women. Thackeray maintained a regular, animated correspondence with Lady Stanley that lasted until his death. Provenance: Henrietta Blanche Ogilvy, Countess of Airlie; by descent the Earl of Airlee. 'Vanity Fair', a social satire originally serialised from 1847 to 1848, was Thackeray's first novel published under his own name and it became an immediate success. It has inspired countless adaptations for screen and stage, including a 2004 film starring Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharpe. This fantastic, unique association copy highlights both Thackeray's position in the wider Victorian intellectual social landscape and his often overlooked skill as an artist.