William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 - 1863) was a British writer known primarily for his satirical novels. Born in Calcutta, India, to English parents who worked for the East India Company, William was a mediocre student, at best. He did a bit of traveling, made a feeble attempt at studying law, then made a fairly serious attempt at becoming an artist before finally committing himself to a career in journalism. Though his professional life was quite successful and satisfying (during his lifetime, he was considered second only to Dickens as a popular novelist and lecturer), his private life was quite sad; one of his three daughters died in infancy and, after only four years of marriage, William's wife began battling mental illness that would plague her the rest of her life. Vanity Fair is William's best-known and most enduring work, although he published well over a dozen novels and hundreds of essays and articles.