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Bonfire of the Vanities

Published
Dec 1990
Main Genre
General Fiction General Fiction
Rating
Pages
704

About This Book

Vintage Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the #1 bestseller that will forever define late-twentieth-century New York style.

"No one has portrayed New York Society this accurately and devastatingly since Edith Wharton" (The National Review)

"A page-turner . . . Brilliant high comedy." (The New Republic)


Sherman McCoy, the central figure of Tom Wolfe's first novel, is a young investment banker with a fourteen-room apartment in Manhattan. When he is involved in a freak accident in the Bronx, prosecutors, politicians, the press, the police, the clergy, and assorted hustlers high and low close in on him, licking their chops and giving us a gargantuan helping of the human comedy, of New York in the 1980s, a city boiling over with racial and ethnic hostilities and burning with the itch to Grab It Now.

Wolfe's novel is a big, panoramic story of the metropolis that reinforces the author's reputation as the foremost chronicler of the way we live in America.

Adapted to film in 1990 by director Brian De Palma, the movie stars Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, and Morgan Freeman.

Genres & Themes

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Formats & Editions

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Paperback

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Paperback
Dec 1988 Bantam ISBN 0553275976
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Trade Paperback
Nov 2001 Dial Press ISBN 0553381342
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Trade Paperback
Mar 2008 Picador ISBN 0312427573
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Paperback
Jan 2010 Vintage (UK) ISBN 0099541270
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Hardcover

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Hardcover
Nov 1988 Turtleback Books ISBN 0613171152
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Hardcover
Nov 1990 Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 0374115370
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Hardcover
Dec 1990 Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 0374115346
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eBook

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eBook
Feb 2002 Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN B003GYEGNO
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eBook
Feb 2002 Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 1429960566
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Audio

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Audio Cassette
Nov 1988 Random House Audio ISBN 0394573552
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Audio Cassette
Dec 1990 Blackstone Audiobooks ISBN 0786102020
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Audio Cassette
Sep 1994 Random House Audio ISBN 1856862879
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Audio Cassette
Aug 1997 Blackstone Audiobooks ISBN 0786102039
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Audio CD (abridged)
Nov 2008 Blackstone Audiobooks ISBN 1433254832
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MP3 CD (abridged)
Nov 2008 Blackstone Audiobooks ISBN 1433254840
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Audio CD
Jun 2009 Blackstone Audiobooks ISBN 1433288419
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Audible
Jun 2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc. ISBN B002CYE9GI
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Jun 2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc. ISBN B00JHO1QXK
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Audio CD
Mar 2012 Blackstone Audiobooks ISBN 1433288435
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Large Print

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Hardcover
Apr 1989 G.K. Hall & Company ISBN 0816147426
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