Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. I thought this was going to be another boring Victorian novel - but it's not. It's a great book about Becky Sharp, orphan and adventuress, making her way through society in England from about 1810 to 1848. Becky is contrasted with Amelia Sedley, the "good girl" who marries the bad man. Much focusing on money and marriage prospects. I enjoyed this book (a book club assignment) a lot more than I thought I would.
It made me pull this book off my shelf and re-read it: What Jane Austen Ate And Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox-Hunting To Whist - The Daily Facts of Life In 19th Century England by Daniel Pool. What was a guinea? Which ranked higher, an earl or a baron? What was the difference between getting married by banns and getting married by a special license? What was a glebe? And all sorts of other information about the stuff in Victorian novels that everyone knew at the time but has now disappeared. Answers: A guinea is a pound plus a shilling, so 21 shillings. An earl ranks higher than a baron but is less than a duke. Banns were announcements of a marriage from the pulpit in church, for three straight weeks. If no one forbade the banns the man and woman could be married. The banns were free, unlike a special license which had to be gotten from the Archbishop of Canterbury and cost a whacking great sum. And a glebe was the farmland attached to the clergyman's "living" - his position as a rector or vicar to a parish in the Church of England.
