William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) was born in Calcutta and sent to England at six; he gambled away much of an inheritance at Cambridge, then tried painting in Paris before turning to journalism, writing under various pseudonyms for Fraser's Magazine and Punch. Vanity Fair (1847–48), serialized without his name attached at first, made his reputation as Dickens's great rival; Pendennis, Henry Esmond and The Newcomes followed, but he never matched its scale again. He died suddenly in London at fifty-two.