"It is 1916. The world has gone to war, and young Leo Sercombe, hauling coal aboard the HMS Queen Mary, is a long way from home. The wild, unchanging West Country roads of his boyhood seem very far away from life aboard a battlecruiser. Skimming through those West Country roads on her motorcycle, Lottie Prideaux defies the expectations of her class and sex as she covertly studies to be a vet. In a world torn asunder by war, everything dances in flux:...

The story of the amoral beauty Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to climb the social ladder, and her sentimental companion Amelia, who falls for a caddish soldier, presents a panoramic satire of Regency society.