A biographer must capture the story of an entire life in just a few hundred pages. He/she must overcome all of the uncertainty and ambiguity that surrounds the life and death of the great (or not so great) writer--to fashion a coherent snapshot of a life. How does a biographer accomplish the task? How does he/she circumnavigate the myths and unreality to get at the truth, even when a great span of time has passed? Read about a few great biographers and their art.
1. Virginia Woolf's Nose
by Hermione Lee. Princeton University Press. In "Virginia Woolf's Nose" discusses some of the greatest challenges biographers face in accomplishing their chosen task of writing a biography. Along the way, Lee highlights a number of famous biographers to show some of the complications. With gaps, missing information, gossip, and guesswork, the biographer must "compose a whole out of parts"--even though most of the subjects are dead.
2. Sidetracks
by Richard Holmes. Knopf. So, "This is the fragmented tale of a single biographical quest," Holmes explains, "a thirty-year journey in search of the perfect Romantic subject and the form to fit it." His search takes him through writers of diverse nationalities and backgrounds, from France to England, and even to America.
3. Life of James Boswell
by Peter Martin. Yale University Press. In this book, Peter Martin takes a look at the life of James Boswell, who is famous as the biographer of Samuel Johnson, but who was also a drinker, gambler, and womanizer. Ultimately, Boswell is described as "a complex, infuriating, yet ultimately appealing character who produced much more than one superbly crafted work of literature."4. Edmond Malone, Shakespearean Scholar: A Literary Biography
by Peter Martin. Cambridge University Press. Edmond Malone was the greatest early editor of William Shakespeare's works, but he was also the biographer of Shakespeare, Dryden and Reynolds. This book explores Malone's dedication to his work, as Martin uncovers both the public and the private man.