Vanity Fair is a novel by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray, which follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars.

It was published as a single volume in 1848 with the subtitle A Novel without a Hero, reflecting Thackeray's interest in deconstructing his era's conventions regarding literary heroism.

[10] Robert Bell—whose friendship later became so great that he was buried near Thackeray at Kensal Green Cemetery[11]—complained that the novel could have used "more light and air" to make it "more agreeable and healthy".

Thackeray rebutted this with Evangelist's words as the pilgrims entered Bunyan's Vanity Fair: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?

"[12][13] From its appearance in Bunyan, "Vanity Fair" or a "vanity-fair" was also in general use for "the world" in a range of connotations from the blandly descriptive to the wearily dismissive to the condemning.

[14] The story is framed by its preface[15] and coda[16] as a puppet show taking place at a fair; the cover illustration of the serial installments was not of the characters but of a troupe of comic actors[9] at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park.

[21] In London in 1814, Rebecca Sharp ("Becky"), daughter of an art teacher and a French dancer, is a strong-willed, cunning, moneyless young woman determined to make her way in society.

After leaving school, Becky stays with her friend Amelia Sedley ("Emmy"), who is a good-natured, simple-minded young girl, of a wealthy London family.

Becky Sharp says farewell to the Sedley family and enters the service of the crude and profligate baronet Sir Pitt Crawley, who has engaged her as a governess to his daughters.

News arrives that Napoleon has escaped from Elba, and as a result the stockmarket becomes jittery, causing Amelia's stockbroker father, John Sedley, to become bankrupt.

She is eventually presented at court to the Prince Regent and charms him further at a game of "acting charades" where she plays the roles of Clytemnestra and Philomela.

After the death of Mr Osborne, Amelia, Jos, George and Dobbin go to Pumpernickel (Weimar in Germany),[23] where they encounter the destitute Becky.

She is completely dominated by her increasingly peevish mother and her spendthrift father, who, to finance one of his failing investment schemes, sells the annuity Jos had provided.

In a letter to his close friend Jane Octavia Brookfield while the book was being written, Thackeray confided that "You know you are only a piece of Amelia, my mother is another half, my poor little wife y est pour beaucoup".

Fluent in both French and English, Becky has a beautiful singing voice, plays the piano, and shows great talent as an actress.

Raised to be a selfish, vain, profligate spender, handsome and self-obsessed, George squanders the last of the money he receives from his father and sets nothing aside to help support Amelia.

Rawdon, the younger of the two Crawley sons, is an empty-headed cavalry officer who is his wealthy aunt's favourite until he marries Becky Sharp, who is of a far lower class.

Surviving texts, his notes, and letters show that adjustments were made – e.g., the Battle of Waterloo was delayed twice – but that the broad outline of the story and its principal themes were well established from the beginning of publication.

[d] By the end of 1859, royalties on Vanity Fair had only given Thackeray about £2000, a third of his take from The Virginians, but was responsible for his still more lucrative lecture tours in Britain and the United States.

[52][40] "The final three illustrations of Vanity Fair are tableaux that insinuate visually what the narrator is unwilling to articulate: that Becky... has actually been substantially rewarded – by society – for her crimes.

"[53] One of the Thackeray's plates for the 11th issue of Vanity Fair was suppressed from publication by threat of prosecution for libel, so great was the resemblance of its depiction of Lord Steyne to the Marquis of Hertford.

How he can render, with a few black lines and dots, shades of expression, so fine, so real; traits of character so minute, so subtle, so difficult to seize and fix, I cannot tell—I can only wonder and admire...

[60] The novel is considered a classic of English literature, though some critics claim that it has structural problems; Thackeray sometimes lost track of the huge scope of his work, mixing up characters' names and minor plot details.

The subtitle, A Novel without a Hero, refers to the characters all being flawed to a greater or lesser degree; even the most sympathetic have weaknesses, for example Captain Dobbin, who is prone to vanity and melancholy.

Thackeray's tendency to highlight faults in all of his characters displays his desire for a greater level of realism in his fiction compared to the rather unlikely or idealised people in many contemporary novels.

He continually offers asides about his characters and compares them to actors and puppets, but his cheek goes even as far as his readers, accusing all who may be interested in such "Vanity Fairs" as being either "of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood".

Dobbin appears first as loyal and magnanimous, if unaware of his own worth; by the end of the story he is presented as a tragic fool, a prisoner of his own sense of duty who knows he is wasting his gifts on Amelia but is unable to live without her.

[g] While Tolstoy's work has a greater emphasis on the historical detail and the effect the war has upon his protagonists, Thackeray instead uses the conflict as a backdrop to the lives of his characters.

A common critical topic is to address various objects in the book and the characters' relationships with them, such as Rebecca's diamonds or the piano Amelia values when she thinks it came from George and dismisses upon learning that Dobbin provided it.

[h] Although what Thackeray principally objected to was glorification of a criminal's deeds, his intent may have been to entrap the Victorian reader with their own prejudices and make them think the worst of Becky Sharp even when they have no proof of her actions.