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After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house, to care for his young daughter.

Adventuress Becky Sharp lives by her wits and charm in an effort to ascend from humble backgrounds into society. She fails to lure Joseph Sedley, the brother of her chum Amelia, into marriage but succeeds with Rawdon Crawley, the son of her employer. However, his family's displeasure keeps Becky from living in wealth, as she had hoped to do. Ever the flirt, Becky has affairs with George Osborne soon after he marries Amelia and with Lord Steyne while Rawdon is away at war with Napoleon. Her adventures come to an end, however; neither Rawdon nor Steyne will have her, and Becky is reduced to touring the Continent under an assumed name. Her lesson learned, Becky brings together Amelia and her faithful suitor, Captain Dobbin, after George is killed in battle; and finally she returns to London to live a quiet life.

Isabel Vane is happily married to Archibald Carlyle and the proud mother of a son. She leads a life of bliss at the family estate, East Lynne, until she suspects Archibald of infidelity with Barbara Hare, who has come to East Lynne to seek his legal advice. Isabel succumbs to the persuasions of Francis Levison and leaves her family to marry him. When Francis abandons Isabel and their baby, she sets out for East Lynne to ask Archibald's forgiveness, but she is seriously injured in a train wreck, while the child is killed. Finally arriving at her destination, Isabel dies before she learns that Archibald, believing her dead, has married Barbara Hare.

Tsing Yu-Ch'ing, a young Chinese, is sent to the U.S. from his native land to study Western civilization and carry on work for his government. After attending an American university, Tsing starts a Chinese newspaper in New York City, and falls in love with a pretty blind girl, Kathleen Levinsky, the daughter of a Jewish father and an Irish mother. Kathleen's life is barren of love and she gladly accepts his attentions. When Dr. Hardwick, a classmate from college, calls on Tsing and meets Kathleen, he offers to cure her blindness through surgery. The operation is a success, but the newly-sighted Kathleen is visibly upset by Tsing's appearance. After saving Kathleen from a killer known as the Hatchetman, Tsing returns to China and commits suicide, believing he will find eternal love with her in the afterlife. Back in the U.S., a mutual attraction develops between Kathleen and Dr. Hardwick.

Model Jacqueline Lee meets Barker Garrison, a wealthy bachelor. Scheming to give her a life of luxury, he invents an old lady who leaves her fortune to Jacqueline. At a party given by Jacqueline, Garrison's intoxicated friend Rupert Lewis--who knows of the scheme--confesses his love for Jacqueline; rejected, he proposes a toast to "the old lady in Rio de Janeiro ... Barker Garrison"; and discovering the truth, Jacqueline disappears. Meanwhile, Garrison travels over Europe in search of her, and later, in New York, while motoring, he sees a girl fall beneath the wheels of a car and finds her to be Jacqueline. When she recovers, he learns that she has become a famous actress under an assumed name. Perceiving that he loves her, she promises never to leave him.

Young Dorothy Cluer marries Robert, a wealthy man, and for the first time in her life she has the means to buy anything she wants. She spends money extravagantly; Robert allows this but it becomes a source of tension between them. Finally she decides to run off with a sleazy British nobleman, but then something happens that changes both of their lives forever.

An orphan girl raised in a convent is so desperate to escape from the drudgery of life with her uncle that she marries an uncouth ironworker. But his manner drives her away and she falls in love with the sophisticated mill owner. Faced with a choice between the two men, she makes a surprising decision.