William Thackeray, Vanity Fair

The novel deals mainly with the interwoven fortunes of two women, the wellborn, passive Amelia Sedley and the ambitious, essentially amoral Becky Sharp, the latter perhaps the most memorable character Thackeray created. The adventuress Becky is the novel's central character and the person around whom all the actors revolve. Amelia marries George Osborne, but George, just before he is killed at the Battle of Waterloo, is ready to desert his young wife for Becky, who has fought her way up through society to marriage with Rawdon Crawley, a young officer from an aristocratic family. Crawley, disillusioned, finally leaves Becky, and in the end virtue apparently triumphs when Amelia marries her lifelong admirer, Captain William Dobbin, and Becky settles down to genteel living and charitable works.