Set in the Napoleonic Wars, Vanity Fair is a rich and resplendent satire of English society in which there is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling.

Becky Sharp, the penniless, orphaned daughter of an artist and a French opera dancer, and Amelia Sedley, the sheltered child of a rich City Merchant are unlikely, but firm friends. From the drawing rooms of Regency London to the fields of Waterloo, Vanity Fair tells their story.

Becky, an irrepressible schemer one of the most seductive social climbers of all time who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. While her friend, the meek and mild Amelia, pursues the opposite course. In the end both girls get what they want but not quite in the way they planned.