The name Vanity Fair has been the title of at least five magazines from the 19th century to the present day, where, since 1983, it has been used by the American popular culture magazine published by Condé Nast.
The first Vanity Fair was an American publication that ran from 1859 to 1863; after which a second, unrelated British publication was in print from 1868 to 1914; a third short-lived American magazine of the name was printed in New York between 1902 and 1904; and the fourth was an American publication edited by Condé Nast beginning in 1913, which would ultimately be merged into Nast's larger venture Vogue in 1936—all four were published independently with no relation to each other. The Vanity Fair name was revived by Condé Nast as its own magazine in 1983, making it the fifth magazine to use the name and only one still in print.[1][2]
Vanity Fair is notably a fictitious place ruled by Beelzebub in the book Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.[3] Later use of the name was influenced by the well-known 1847–48 novel of the same name by William Makepeace Thackeray.
- ^ Vanity Fair, accessed 2014.10.30
- ^ Vanity Fair: The One-Click History Archived 2012-04-14 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 2014.10.30
- ^ "It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it is kept is 'lighter than vanity.'"The Pilgrim's Progress; accessed 2014.10.30