Vanity Fair

English

Etymology

From “Vanity Fair”, location of a debauched year-long festival in the 1678 novel The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.

Proper noun

Vanity Fair

1. (derogatory) Society, especially high society, as a place of self-interest and the superficial.
   • 1827, [Walter Scott], chapter III, in Chronicles of the Canongate; […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [Ballantyne and Co.] for Cadell and Co.; London: Simpkin and Marshall, →OCLC, page 46:

     And how will your conscience answer one day for carrying so many bonny lasses to barter modesty for conceit and levity at the metropolitan Vanity Fair?

   • 1828, William Buell Sprague, Letters from Europe, in 1828: first published in the New York observer, page 49:

     Such a complete Vanity Fair as the Palais Royal, is not, I imagine, to be found any where else

   • 1860, Katherine Thomson, John Cockburn Thomson, The wits and beaux of society, by Grace and Philip Wharton, page 97:

     Nash, the son of a glass-merchant — Brummell, the hopeful of a small shopkeeper — became the intimates of princes, dukes, and fashionables; were petty kings of Vanity Fair, and were honoured by their subjects.