Wáng Fú 王符 (catalog dates 76–157, conventional ca. 90–165), zì Jiéxìn 節信, was a Later Hàn classicist of Línjǐng 臨涇 in Āndìng 安定 (modern Gānsù). His biography is in Hòu Hàn shū j. 49 (王充王符仲長統列傳). Born of obscure provincial background, he never advanced in office — by his biographer’s account because, in the patronage culture of the Hédì 和帝 / Āndì 安帝 reigns, his uprightness made him friendless among the well-connected — and turned to writing in compensation. His Qiánfū lùn 潛夫論 (KR3a0010), so titled to mask the author’s name (qiánfū “the hidden one”), is a thirty-six-篇 (35 + 序錄) treatise of biting political-social criticism focused on the late-Eastern-Hàn malaise: official corruption, the weakness of imperial authority before the great families, frontier policy on the northwest qiāng 羌 frontier, and ritual decline. The composition window can be fixed approximately from his recorded meeting with Huángfǔ Guī 皇甫規 after the latter’s retirement in Yánxī 5 (162) — placing Wáng Fú’s late activity in the Huándì 桓帝 reign and his death thereafter. CBDB carries five homonyms 王符 (252290, 328162, 467046, 474299, 539639), none with confirmed Hàn dates.