Why this book

Thackeray subtitled his book 'A Novel Without a Hero,' refusing readers anyone to simply admire. Every character here is flawed, funny, and human — which is why, after nearly two centuries, Vanity Fair still reads as strikingly modern.

The Story

At Miss Pinkerton's school, orphaned Becky Sharp says goodbye to her only friend, gentle Amelia Sedley, therefore flinging the headmistress's parting gift — a dictionary — out the carriage window, done forever with anyone telling her what she is worth.

Amelia loves easily and trusts without question; Becky, penniless and orphaned since childhood, has learned that charm is the only capital she will ever own, therefore the two friends part from the very same gate with utterly opposite ambitions in mind.

Amelia brings Becky home to the Sedleys', therefore introducing her to Jos Sedley, Amelia's fat, vain, immensely wealthy brother home from India, a man so painfully shy of women he can barely finish a sentence in front of one.

At Vauxhall Gardens, Becky sets her plan in motion, therefore plying nervous Jos with glass after glass of rack punch beneath the swinging lanterns, determined that tonight will finally be the night he proposes marriage and secures her a fortune.

But Jos, mortified by his own drunkenness and terrified of commitment, flees London the next morning without a word, therefore Becky's first great scheme collapses entirely — no proposal, no fortune, nothing at all to show for her careful charm.

With no other prospects, Becky takes work as governess at Queen's Crawley, therefore leaving London for the crude household of Sir Pitt Crawley, a coarse, penny-pinching baronet who treats his own family little better than his farmhands and his dogs.

Becky charms everyone at Queen's Crawley — the crude baronet, his squabbling sons, even the servants — with quick wit and careful flattery, therefore making herself indispensable in a house that runs entirely on greed, old grudges, and older money.

Meanwhile in London, Amelia Sedley loves the vain young officer George Osborne, promised to her since childhood, but George's rich father wants him married to an heiress instead, and George is far too easily flattered by his own reflection anyway.

George's quiet fellow officer, Captain William Dobbin, secretly devoted to Amelia's happiness, keeps shaming vain George into honoring the engagement, therefore holding the match together for years — though no one, least of all Amelia herself, ever thinks to thank him.

Miss Crawley, Sir Pitt's wealthy, sharp-tongued spinster sister, arrives at Queen's Crawley and takes an instant liking to clever, amusing Becky, therefore inviting her to London as a companion — a fortune-hunter's foot finally set inside a rich woman's door.

But Becky harbors a secret: she is already married, in private, to Rawdon Crawley — Miss Crawley's dashing dragoon nephew and favorite heir, a man as reckless with money as he is genuinely, foolishly loyal to his clever young wife.

When Sir Pitt's wife dies, the widower proposes marriage to his own governess without knowing she is already wed, therefore Becky must confess the truth aloud, right there in his study: she is already, secretly, Mrs. Rawdon Crawley.

The secret elopement enrages Miss Crawley, who feels deceived and humiliated by the two people she trusted and had planned to reward most generously in her will, therefore she disinherits Rawdon on the spot, leaving her fortune to his prim, dull elder brother, Pitt.

Rawdon's own reputation for cards, horses, and easy spending only worsens the couple's situation, therefore Becky finds herself managing not just charm and appearances but an ever-growing pile of debts her husband cheerfully never seems to worry about at all.

Cut off and penniless, Becky and Rawdon marry into no real fortune at all, but Becky believes charm and cunning can outrun any bill collector, therefore the couple begins a marriage lived entirely, cheerfully, and precariously on nothing but borrowed credit.

Back in London, Amelia's father John Sedley gambles everything on risky, over-confident speculations in a falling market, therefore losing it all when the schemes collapse entirely, and the once-comfortable Sedley family is suddenly, humiliatingly ruined, forced to sell home and furniture alike.

Old Mr. Osborne, George's tyrannical, socially ambitious father, forbids his son from marrying now-penniless Amelia, therefore ordering George to abandon her entirely for a richer, better-connected match, since in his world love matters far less than an untouched inheritance.

But Dobbin shames George into honoring his word anyway, therefore George marries Amelia in secret against his father's furious command, choosing loyalty to a promise over his own inheritance — for once, seemingly, the better man in him actually wins.

Furious at the secret wedding, Old Osborne disowns George completely, therefore striking his own son from the family Bible and the family fortune alike, leaving George with nothing but his uniform, his new bride, and his own considerable vanity.

War resumes: Napoleon has escaped, therefore the regiments march for Brussels, and with them go George and Amelia, Dobbin, Rawdon and Becky, and timid Jos Sedley too — old friends and rivals, suddenly all camped together on the very edge of battle.

At the eve-of-battle ball, glittering with uniforms and candlelight, George Osborne flirts openly with Becky right in front of his own wife, therefore humiliating devoted Amelia in public, who watches her husband's vanity outweigh his own marriage vows completely.

Before George can make amends, the drums sound and the army marches out of Brussels toward Waterloo that same night, therefore leaving Amelia's hurt unhealed and George's last words to her clouded by a guilt he now has no time left to fix.

On the field at Waterloo, amid smoke and cannon fire, George Osborne is struck down and killed instantly, therefore ending, in a single moment, both his vanity and the marriage Dobbin had worked so hard and so quietly to save.

Amelia, widowed and pregnant, returns to her ruined parents' cramped lodgings to grieve, therefore beginning years of quiet poverty and devotion to George's memory, unaware that gentle, loyal Dobbin has loved her, silently and patiently, all along and still does.

Becky and Rawdon, meanwhile, prosper spectacularly in Paris and London on nothing but credit and Becky's dazzling social cunning, therefore living like the truly wealthy while owing money to nearly everyone who has ever dined once at their table.

Miss Crawley eventually dies, therefore her fortune passes, exactly as decided years earlier, entirely to prim Pitt Crawley and never to Rawdon, confirming that the old disinheritance for that secret marriage was never, ever going to be forgiven or reversed.

Lord Steyne, one of the most powerful and feared noblemen in England, notices clever Becky at a fashionable gathering, therefore beginning a patronage that will lift her higher into society than she has ever dreamed possible — at a cost not yet named.

In London, Becky rises spectacularly through fashionable society under Lord Steyne's powerful patronage, therefore gaining jewels, invitations, and influence far beyond anything her small dowry or her dull, disgraced husband could ever have provided for her alone.

But climbing so high costs Becky her family: she neglects her own young son entirely and drifts ever further from Rawdon, therefore trading the two people who genuinely love her for the fleeting approval of people who merely find her amusing.

Rawdon Crawley is arrested without warning for a pile of unpaid debts and hauled off to a grim sponging-house for the night, therefore sending an urgent message home to Becky, certain she will come at once with the money to free him.

Released at last, Rawdon rushes home late that same night, therefore finding Becky alone with Lord Steyne, dressed in diamonds Rawdon never bought her, the ugly truth of how she has really been living suddenly impossible for him to ignore any longer.

Furious, Rawdon strikes Lord Steyne and tears the jewels and a banknote from the room, therefore ending his marriage to Becky permanently that very night — whatever affection Rawdon still felt for her cannot possibly survive what he has just witnessed.

Years on, Old Osborne finally learns, almost by accident, that quiet, unassuming Dobbin has secretly supported penniless Amelia and her small son for years out of his own modest officer's pay, therefore softening at last toward the son he once disowned.

Osborne partially reconciles with George's memory by taking custody of young Georgy, therefore giving the boy every privilege his own father once had, while Amelia, aching but grateful, allows her only child to live in a comfort she cannot provide herself.

Under his grandfather's indulgence, young Georgy Osborne grows vain and spoiled, doted on and dressed in constant finery, therefore echoing, in miniature, the very same vanity that once cost his own father everything — a family pattern no one seems able to break.

When Old Osborne dies soon after, therefore his will provides generously for both Georgy and Amelia, at last easing the poverty she has quietly endured since Waterloo, and freeing her, unknowingly, to finally consider a future beyond years of mourning.

Amelia, her brother Jos, loyal Dobbin, and young Georgy travel abroad together, therefore settling for a time in the small German town of Pumpernickel, where old wounds and old acquaintances have a strange, unwelcome way of resurfacing when least expected.

There, shockingly, they encounter Becky Sharp again — disgraced, estranged from Rawdon, and living now as a shabby, restless vagabond among gamblers and adventurers, therefore forcing Amelia and Becky's very different paths to cross again after so many years apart.

Becky wants respectability and money again; Jos, still infatuated after all these years, wants only Becky; Amelia wants merely peace with George's memory — therefore when Becky reappears, ingratiating herself through besotted Jos, she is really maneuvering toward one final scheme.

Becky, cornering an emotional moment, produces an old letter in George's own hand, proposing that Amelia's husband once run away with Becky herself before Waterloo, therefore shattering, in a single page, the perfect memory Amelia has faithfully guarded for fifteen years.

Paradoxically, the proof of George's betrayal frees Amelia rather than destroying her, therefore releasing her, at last, from fifteen years of idolizing a husband who was never as devoted to her as she had always, so faithfully, believed him to be.

Amelia finally turns to Dobbin, the man who has loved her patiently for eighteen long years without a single complaint, therefore accepting his devotion at last, and the two who were always, quietly, meant for each other are finally free to marry.

Becky, scheme still unfinished, attaches herself instead to infatuated, wealthy Jos Sedley, therefore becoming his constant companion and manager, controlling his money, his household, and soon, it seems, his very fear-filled, entirely dependent life as well.

Three months later at Aix-la-Chapelle, Jos Sedley dies suddenly and suspiciously, having heavily insured his own life with Becky named as part-beneficiary, therefore leaving behind a death that no one can quite prove and no one can quite manage to forget.

Dobbin and Amelia settle into quiet domestic happiness at last, therefore raising a daughter together as Dobbin retires from the army entirely, choosing a peaceful home over any further glory — the reward, finally, for eighteen long, patient years.

The insurers, suspicious of Jos's sudden death, resist paying out at first, but legal pressure forces their hand, therefore Becky collects her share of the policy as administratrix — money Dobbin refuses to touch, cutting off all contact with her forever.

Lord Steyne, disgraced in his own quiet way by the scandal, retreats from English society entirely and eventually dies abroad, therefore vanishing from the story much as he entered it — powerful, unpunished, and ultimately unmourned by anyone who truly mattered.

Far away, Rawdon Crawley — made governor of Coventry Island by Lord Steyne simply to remove him from London — dies there of yellow fever, therefore estranged from Becky to the very end, yet still tender and loving toward their young son.

Six weeks after Sir Pitt Crawley's own quiet death, young Rawdon — Becky's long-neglected son, now grown into a serious young man — inherits the Crawley baronetcy entirely, therefore receiving at last the title his parents' old scandal once nearly cost him.

Becky, wealthy now from insurance money and old connections, reinvents herself entirely as a respectable, charitable society lady, therefore circulating comfortably through the spa towns of Bath and Cheltenham as though scandal had never once touched her name at all.

At a charity fundraiser years later, the Dobbins and their children encounter Becky face to face, therefore recognizing exactly who she still is beneath the charity and the smiles — and quietly, deliberately, choosing to walk straight past her instead.

What it means

As Thackeray wrote, closing his own tale, 'Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?' Becky's cunning buys comfort but never love; Amelia's devotion buys love but years of needless grief; only Dobbin's quiet patience is ever truly rewarded.

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