"Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray is a satirical novel about ambition, social climbing, and moral hypocrisy in early 19th-century England. It follows two contrasting women: Becky Sharp, a clever, manipulative, and ambitious orphan who uses her charm to rise in society, and Amelia Sedley, a gentle and kind but na ve woman devoted to love and family.
As Becky schemes her way through the upper classes and Amelia faces heartbreak after the fall of her husband's fortune, the novel exposes the greed, vanity, and pretensions of society. Thackeray calls it "a novel without a hero," highlighting that nearly everyone in the story is flawed by selfishness or moral weakness.