William Makepeace Thackeray

Born in India, Thackeray was sent to England in 1816 as a child following the death of his father. He grew up an idle young man, only turning to writing as a profession after squandering his inheritance on gambling and two failed newspapers. By the late 1830’s he was a successful writer, though his family life suffered as his wife succumbed to depression, spending her life after 1842 in an institution. In his day he was of a stature comparable to Dickens, and his best known work, Vanity Fair, is still taught. He died in 1863 of a stroke.