Set against the backdrop of the Waterloo campaign during Napoleon’s Hundred Days, Vanity Fair tells the story of two very different women: Rebecca (Becky) Sharp and Amelia Sedley. Their education complete, Becky and Amelia set out into the world, where their lives follow different paths from a moral, social, and material perspective. Becky’s beauty, wit, and will take her far until her selfish, self-serving behaviour sets her adrift, while Amelia, whose goodness defines her, finds her patience and endurance tested as poverty becomes the defining struggle of her existence.

Vanity Fair, which takes its title from a chapter in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, remains William Makepeace Thackery’s masterpiece, and has inspired many film adaptations over the years, including the 2004 Mira Nair-directed version starring Reese Witherspoon as the indomitable Becky.

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