Set in the years before and after Waterloo, Vanity Fair tells the parallel stories of two schoolfriends: the quiet, long-suffering Amelia and the brilliant, scheming Becky Sharp. With a fine eye for the main chance, Becky almost succeeds in climbing the highest pinnacles of high society, until brought down by a combination of bad luck and over-ambition. With a superb cast of secondary characters - the old roue, the dull banker, the patient lover, the fat buffoon - the novel is as brilliant and brutal as a cartoon by Rowlandson or Gillray.