The novel 'Vanity Fair' was written by:

"Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero" is a novel by the English writer William Makepeace Thackeray, published in monthly parts in 1847-48.

About the novel:

• It is set in English society at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, including the Battle of Waterloo (1815).
• It follows two contrasting women: Becky Sharp, a clever, ambitious and unscrupulous orphan who uses her charm to climb the social ladder; and Amelia Sedley, her gentle, kind-hearted friend from a wealthy family.
• The novel satirises the greed, snobbery, hypocrisy and social climbing of early 19th-century English society.
• The subtitle "A Novel without a Hero" reflects Thackeray's view that none of his characters is truly heroic.
• The title comes from John Bunyan's allegory "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1678), in which "Vanity Fair" is a town where people's vanities are on display.
• Becky Sharp is one of the most famous anti-heroines in English literature.
• It was made into a film in 2004 directed by Mira Nair, with Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharp.

About William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863):

He was born in Calcutta (Kolkata), India, where his father worked for the East India Company. He was sent to England at the age of five after his father's death.

He studied at Charterhouse School and Trinity College, Cambridge.

He was a rival of Charles Dickens as the leading novelist of Victorian England.

His other works include "The History of Henry Esmond" (1852), "The Newcomes" and "The Luck of Barry Lyndon" (filmed by Stanley Kubrick as "Barry Lyndon", 1975).

Other Victorian novelists:

• Charles Dickens: "Oliver Twist", "Great Expectations".
• Anthony Trollope: "The Warden", "Barchester Towers".
• George Eliot: "Middlemarch".
• The Brontë sisters: "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights".

Why not the other options?

• ✗Charles Dickens wrote "Great Expectations".
• ✗Anthony Trollope wrote "Barchester Towers".
• ✗George Eliot wrote "Middlemarch".