Vanity Fair

The classic novel of villainy, crime, merriment, lovemaking, jilting, laughing, cheating, fighting and dancing, now a major new ITV series from the producers of Poldark, Victoria and And Then There Were None.

In William Thackeray's Vanity Fair, no one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George.

As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles - military and domestic - are fought, fortunes made and lost.

The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.

Read the book before you see the series, then devour it all over again.