The best thing he ever wrote - sharp, brilliant, touching, clever and cruel, with an unforgettable heroine' -Joanna Trollope Becky Sharp is a poor orphan when she first makes friends with the lovely Amelia Sedley at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies. She may not have the natural advantages of her companion but she more than makes up for it with her wit, charm, deviousness and determination to make a success of herself whatever the cost. Vanity Fair is the story of Becky's spectacular rise and fall as she gambles, manipulates and seduces her way through high society and the Napoleonic wars.