Vanity Fair (version 2)

Vanity Fair is a novel that skewers the pretensions of English society with a precision that still cuts two centuries later. At its center stands Becky Sharp, one of literature's most deliciously ruthless protagonists, a woman of no fortune and fierce ambition who determines to climb the social ladder by any means necessary. From her first act of stealing a jewelry box from her protectress, Becky announces herself: clever, charming, and utterly without scruple. Opposite her stands Amelia Sedley, gentle and good-hearted, whose very naivete becomes her tragedy in a world that devours the innocent. Thackeray called it 'a novel without a hero,' and he meant it as praise. This is a book that refuses to offer easy morality or comfortable redemption. Instead, it captures the raw machinery of reputation, money, and desire that drove Regency England, and drives us still. The satire never lets up, yet there's a strange tenderness beneath it, a recognition that we are all, in our various ways, performers in the great vanity fair of life.