Synopsis:
 
Vanity fair was Thackeray's first major novel and is commonly considered to be his masterpiece. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic  wars, the story mixes ambition, greed, duplicity, coarseness, wealth and poverty into a literary tour de force.
 
In Miss Pinkerton's Academy for young ladies, the advantaged Amelia Smedley is in stark contrast to the poor, but sharp-witted Becky Sharp. However, fate is not always kind as their lives become entwined with the likes of the coarse bully, Sir Pitt Crawley, his brother, The Rev Bute Crawley, the tyrannical Lady Southdown, the corrupt Lord Steyne, and the loyal William Dobbin.