On a broad and colourful canvas, extending from urban and rural England to Waterloo and the continental haunts of exiles, Thackeray gives us one of the greatest social-satirical novels in the language-one of the most entertaining and profound, and, in the person of Becky Sharp, we have one of literature`s most resourceful, attractive, and amoral characters. Essentially a commentary on hypocrisy and those ethical principles to which society pays lip-service, "Vanity Fair" (1847-8) invites us to consider which is to blame: the opportunist or the society that makes opportunism necessary. This edition, which reproduces the text of the Oxford Thackeray enhanced by John Sutherland`s lively introduction and notes, includes all of Thackeray`s own illustrations.