21 Aug William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) was, in his time, second only to Dickens in popularity. These days, however, his reputation rests almost entirely on the enduring popularity of his satirical novel Vanity Fair (1848). There were movie adaptations in 1932 with Myrna Loy, 1935 (titled Becky Sharp) with Miriam Hopkins, and 2004 with Reese Witherspoon. There were BBC TV adaptations in 1967 with Susan Hampshire, 1987 with Eve Matheson, and 1998 with Natasha Little. In 2018 the British ITV network presented a much-praised seven-part series starring Olivia Cooke. Thackeray’s novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844) was the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s feature film Barry Lyndon (1975) starring Ryan O’Neal as the eponymous loveable rogue.

Thackeray is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in west London. There’s a bust in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey and a monument in the Memorial Chapel of Charterhouse School (a leading public school 40 miles southwest of London) which Thackeray attended.