'A Booth in Vanity Fair'

Chapter 1, “A Booth in Vanity Fair”: Charity Bazaars and the Methods of Fiction, narrates the progress of fundraising bazaars from their beginnings in the post–Napoleonic War era to the end of the nineteenth century when massive fairs held during London’s social season were a well-entrenched tradition. The author utilizes newspaper data to give a trajectory of bazaar development and draws broadly from material written and printed in conjunction with bazaars, including advertisements, press coverage, broadsheets, pamphlets, gift books, and instruction manuals. Together, these materials demonstrate the ways in which philanthropists adopted techniques from fiction to stage bazaars as vital scenes of civil society.