Sherman McCoy

The Bonfire of the Vanities

Cover of the first edition
Author	Tom Wolfe
Cover artist	Fred Marcellino
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Political novel
Publisher	Farrar Straus Giroux
Publication date	October 1987
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	690
ISBN
OCLC	213470814
Followed by	A Man in Full

The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1987 satirical novel by Tom Wolfe. The story is a drama about ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in 1980s New York City and centers on three main characters: WASP bond trader Sherman McCoy, Jewish assistant district attorney Larry Kramer, and British expatriate journalist Peter Fallow.

The novel was originally conceived as a serial in the style of Charles Dickens' writings; it ran in 27 installments in Rolling Stone starting in 1984. Wolfe heavily revised it before it was published in book form. The novel was a bestseller and a phenomenal success, even in comparison with Wolfe's other books. It has often been called the quintessential novel of the 1980s.

The title is a reference to the historical Bonfire of the Vanities, which happened in 1497 in Florence, Italy, when the city was under the rule of the Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola, who ordered the burning of objects that church authorities considered sinful, such as cosmetics, mirrors, books and art.

Wolfe deliberately set out to make The Bonfire of the Vanities capture the essence of New York City in the 1980s. Wall Street in the 1980s was newly resurgent after most of the previous decade had been bad for stocks. The excesses of Wall Street were at the forefront of the popular imagination, captured in films like Oliver Stone's Wall Street, novels like American Psycho, and in non-fiction books like Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Barbarians at the Gate.