Biography: A Brief HistoryFor what purpose and for whom has biographical pursuit endured, and how does it play such a contested, popular role in contemporary Western culture, from biopics to blogs, memoirs to docudramas? Award-winning biographer Hamilton addresses these questions in an incisive and vivid narrative that will appeal to students of human nature and self-representation across the arts and sciences. |
Contents
| 6 | |
Hagiography | 33 |
The Renaissance of Biography | 60 |
Victorian Pseudobiography | 100 |
The Early Twentieth Century | 129 |
The Rise of Film | 168 |
The Peoples War | 186 |
Death of the Author | 206 |
Biography on Trial | 242 |
The Miners Canary | 251 |
Biography Today | 279 |
Epilogue | 292 |
Notes | 297 |
| 315 | |
Acknowledgments | 322 |
| 329 | |
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American American Splendor artists autobiography Barrie’s became become biog biogra biography’s Birkin Boswell’s Bridgeman Art Library British Casanova chapter Christian chroniclers commemoration Confessions Copyright critical culture death definition democracy depiction documentary dramatized English example fascination fiction fictional field figures film filmmakers final finally first Flaubert’s Freud Gilgamesh graphical Greek hagiography Harold Nicolson historians Hitler Hollywood Holroyd homosexual human Ibid J. M. Barrie James Janet Malcolm Jesus John Johnson Leonardo libel literary London Lord Lytton Strachey Malcolm man’s memoirs modern narrative never Nigel Nicolson nonfiction novelist official ography paint Paul Murray Kendall Plutarch poet portrait portraiture print biography published Raleigh raphy readers real lives real-life record Reflections Rousseau Saint Augustine’s Samuel Johnson scientific sexual Sigmund Freud significant Sir Walter social society starring story Strachey’s television tion trans truth twentieth century University Press Virginia Woolf Western writing written York