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William Makepeace Thackeray is best known for his novel Vanity Fair, with its attack on pretension and hypocrisy and its intriguing character Becky Sharpe. A few of his other novels are still read--Henry Esmond,The Newcomes,Pendennis, and Barry Lyndon--as is his children's story The Rose and the Ring. Unfortunately, the nonfiction that makes up a substantial and entertaining segment of his work is now largely ignored, though Thackeray's nonfiction offers much the same appeal as his fiction. In essays as well as novels, we have the company of genial but often satirical narrators and a range of villainous, foolish, amusing, and sometimes admirable characters. In his movement back and forth from essayist to serial novelist, Thackeray made no abrupt changes but improved gradually with the mellowing effects of age and experience. His purpose and themes remained constant. His intent was always to root out humbug, cant, sham, and snobbery. On a larger scale he wanted to tell the truth, and the major truth he saw was that few individuals were genuinely great but many pretended to greatness.
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