Biography: A Very Short Introduction

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Overview

Hermione Lee is one of the leading literary biographers in the English-speaking world, the author of widely acclaimed lives of Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf. Now, in this Very Short Introduction, Lee provides a magnificent look at the genre in which she is an undisputed master—the art of biography. Here Lee considers the cultural and historical background of different types of biographies, looks at the factors that affect biographers, and asks whether there are different strategies, ethics, and principles required for writing about one person compared to another. She also discusses contemporary biographical publications and considers what kind of "lives" are the most popular and in ...

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More About This Book

Overview

Hermione Lee is one of the leading literary biographers in the English-speaking world, the author of widely acclaimed lives of Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf. Now, in this Very Short Introduction, Lee provides a magnificent look at the genre in which she is an undisputed master—the art of biography. Here Lee considers the cultural and historical background of different types of biographies, looks at the factors that affect biographers, and asks whether there are different strategies, ethics, and principles required for writing about one person compared to another. She also discusses contemporary biographical publications and considers what kind of "lives" are the most popular and in demand. And along the way, she answers such questions as why do certain people and historical events arouse so much interest? How can biographies be compared with history and works of fiction? Does a biography need to be true? Is it acceptable to omit or conceal things? Does the biographer need to personally know the subject? Must a biographer be subjective?

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
Oxford's "Very Short Introductions" series offers concise overviews of central issues of a topic. Distinguished writer, reviewer, and biographer Lee (Virginia Wolfe; Edith Wharton) here examines the various forms of biography throughout history. Lee details the biography as an autopsy, a posthumous exercise in scrutiny, and a portrait that captures characterization, referencing many works of classic British biography to show the changes in the writing form from the Victorian era through the golden ages and modern times. Especially informative is the comparison of how various American biographers have presented their works on Marilyn Monroe, showing how a writer's style illuminates the subliminal relationship between the biographer and the subject. VERDICT Students of biography and writing will appreciate the broad overview packed into this succinct work.—Joyce Sparrow, Clearwater, FL

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780199533541
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press
  • Publication date: 8/31/2009
  • Pages: 144
  • Sales rank: 529,511
  • Series: Very Short Introductions Series
  • Product dimensions: 4.40 (w) x 6.80 (h) x 0.50 (d)

Meet the Author

Hermione Lee was the Goldsmiths' Chair of English Literature and Fellow of New College at the University of Oxford. In 2008, Lee was elected President of Wolfson College, University of Oxford. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, of the British Academy, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2003, she was made a Companion of the British Empire for Services to Literature.

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  • Posted June 9, 2011

    more from this reviewer

    A good introduction to biography as a genre

    Biography is a story of someone's life, and biographies have been written for as long as people had been interested in lives of others. This very short introduction takes us on a trip throughout centuries at exploring the genre, it's ever evolving conventions and the basic requirements that we expect from all good biographies. The main focus of the book is the British biographies, with a few others used as examples. There are no biographical examples from non-western sources, unless you count those from the Bible. Nonetheless, even with these constraints we get to see a vast variety of approaches to biography. Some biographers had intimate first-hand knowledge of their subject, while other wrote from a vast spatial and temporal distance, relying solely on secondhand sources. Another big difference that biography as a genre has undergone is the change of mores that nowadays puts a stronger stress on disreputable and salacious aspects of one's life. This is a far cry from "exemplary lives" model that had been popular in the past, which had presupposed the purpose of biography to be enlightenment and edification of the public.

    Reading about biography in abstract can be rather boring. Luckily, this book is replete with examples from various notable biographies. However, if you are not interested in biography as a genre you may not get too much out of reading this book.

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