Vanity Fair follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Emmy Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. Becky is a strong-willed, cunning, moneyless, young woman determined to make her way in society. After leaving school, Becky stays with Emmy, who is a good-natured, simple-minded, young girl, of a wealthy London family. There, Becky meets the dashing and self-obsessed Captain George Osborne (Amelia''s betrothed) and Amelia''s brother Joseph Sedley, a clumsy and vainglorious but rich civil servant home from the East India Company. Hoping to marry Sedley, the richest young man she has met, Becky entices him, but she fails. George Osborne''s friend Captain William Dobbin loves Amelia, but only wishes her happiness, which is centered on George.
