“Vanity Fair” is Thackeray’s creative masterpiece, one of the remarkable literary works of the 19th century. On the pages of the novel, a broad panorama unfolds of life in England in the first half of the 19th century. A long chain of people from different social circles passes before the reader—businessmen, aristocrats, officials, members of parliament, landowners, soldiers, diplomats, governesses, and lackeys. All of them live by the laws of the “fair,” where everything is sold and everything is bought, where success and wealth rule over everyone.