Amelia vs Vanity Fair: Which Should You Read?

Amelia Henry Fielding · 1751 ★★★★☆ 3.5 594 pages · ≈ 11 h 00 m · Demanding

Against her mother's wishes, Amelia marries Captain William Booth, a young army officer, and runs away to London. William is unjustly imprisoned in Newgate, and is subsequently seduced by Miss Matthews. Amelia stays…

Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray · 1800 ★★★★☆ 3.8 699 pages · ≈ 12 h 57 m · Demanding

“WHILE the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour.”

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…