Who wrote the novel 'Vanity Fair'?

William Makepeace Thackeray wrote the novel *Vanity Fair*.

Thackeray was an English novelist, illustrator, and satirist whose best-known work presents a sharp panorama of British society. The novel follows Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley, along with their families, friends, and rivals, against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath.

*Vanity Fair* first appeared as a serial in 20 monthly parts between January 1847 and July 1848. It was published in book form in 1848 with the subtitle *A Novel without a Hero*, reflecting Thackeray’s refusal to present a conventionally admirable central protagonist. He also supplied illustrations for the work.

The title echoes John Bunyan’s *The Pilgrim’s Progress*, where Vanity Fair represents worldly temptation and attachment. Readers sometimes confuse Thackeray with Charles Dickens because both were major Victorian novelists, but Dickens wrote works such as *Oliver Twist* and *Great Expectations*. George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, and Dickens were contemporary writers, not the author of this novel.