William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist and illustrator whose satirical works made his name. He is best known for Vanity Fair, a picture of English society that follows the rival fortunes of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. He also wrote The Luck of Barry Lyndon, later adapted into a 1975 film by Stanley Kubrick, and his later novels such as Pendennis grew gentler toward characters coming of age. He died in 1863 at fifty-two.