Thackeray, William Makepeace (1811-1863)

English novelist and essayist. He was a regular contributor to Fraser's Magazine and Punch. His first novel was Vanity Fair (1847-48), significant for the breadth of its canvas as well as for the depth of the characterization. This was followed by Pendennis (1848), Henry Esmond (1852) (and its sequel The Virginians (1857-59)), and The Newcomes (1853-55), in which Thackeray's tendency to sentimentality is most marked.

The son of an East India Company official, he was educated at Cambridge University. He studied law, and then art in Paris, before ultimately becoming a journalist in London. Other works include The Book of Snobs (1848) and the fairy tale The Rose and the Ring (1855).