pAccording to Adam Smith, vanity is a vice that contains a promise a vain person is much more likely than a person with low self-esteem to accomplish great things. Problematic as it may be from a moral perspective, vanity makes a person more likely to succeed in business, politics and other public pursuits. The great secret of education, Smith writes, is to direct vanity to proper objects this peculiar vice can serve as a stepping-stone to virtue. How can this transformation be accomplished and what might go wrong along the way What exactly iisi vanity and how does it factor into our personal and professional lives, for better and for worsebrpThis book brings Smith's iTheory of Moral Sentimentsi into conversation with William Makepeace Thackeray's iVanity Fair ito offer an analysis of vanity and the objects proper and otherwise to which it may be directed. Leading the way through the literary case study presented herei iis Becky Sharp, the ambitious and cunning protagonist of Thackera