Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms

In the past quarter century, we have seen a vast increase in the number and importance of biographical writings appearing in the English language. This is not to deny the value of standard works ranging from Suetonius and his Life of the Caesars, written in the first century ad to Lytton Strachey, and his Eminent Victorians of the Bloomsbury era. But the publishing boom of the last 30 years has more than adequately responded to the interest in “personality”, undoubtedly caused by the trivialising effect of television, which also catapults into the limelight many people from backgrounds which would...