Summary
Set in early 19th-century England and during the Napoleonic Wars, Vanity Fair is a brilliant, sprawling satire of British society, following the lives of two sharply contrasting women: the cunning and ambitious Becky Sharp, and the sweet but passive Amelia Sedley.
Orphaned and lower-class, Becky uses her wit, charm, and ruthlessness to climb the social ladder, while Amelia clings to idealism and romantic illusions even as her life crumbles.
Around them, Thackeray populates his novel with a cast of vain, foolish, hypocritical, and self-serving characters—politicians, aristocrats, military officers, and socialites—who all live in Vanity Fair, a metaphor for a world obsessed with status, wealth, and appearances.
Unlike typical Victorian novels, Vanity Fair has no clear-cut hero or heroine—only deeply flawed humans navigating an indifferent, often absurd society.