bio notes:
born: 7/18/1811 died: 12/24/1863 born as: William Makepeace Thackeray
English novelist whose reputation rests chiefly on Vanity Fair (1847-48), a novel of the Napoleonic period in England, and Henry Esmond, 3 vol. (1852), set in the early 18th century. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature