William Makepeace Thackeray biography

Profile

William Makepeace Thackeray’s fame rests chiefly on the novels Vanity Fair (1847–48), a panoramic survey of English manners and human frailties set in the Napoleonic era, and Henry Esmond (1852), set in the early 18th century. In his time he was regarded as the only possible rival of Charles Dickens for his pictures of contemporary life, but his popularity declined in the 20th century.