| Reviews |
| - 'This is a book that everyone interested in biography has been waiting for ... it combines intelligent, dense analysis of biography with impressive depth of reading and practical guidance. It breathes enthusiasm ... and is neither clever-dick theoretical nor flip.' - Jane Ridley, Spectator, 25/11/00.
- 'Comparing three prize-winning biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Backscheider offers an especially shrewd demonstration of the biographers' configuration of facts into narrative. This masterful volume is enhanced by a superb bibilography of biographies and of books and articles on the theory and practice of biography. Best of all, Backscheider writes a learned and accessible style.' - C
Rollyson, Choice, Jul/Aug.00.
- 'a vivid and well-researched study useful to both scholars and readers of biography ... a telling assessment of 500 reviews of biographies.' - C Rollyson, Choice, Jul/Aug.00. 05/12/2000
- 'She writes a fluent, good-humoured, often humorous prose, she wears her extraordinary erudition as lightly as a scarf, and her aims are disarmingly pragmatic: to offer a practical guide to the novice biographer based on her personal experience ... and a remarkable range of intelligent reading (her bibliography is a treasure-trove) ... Her book will be blessed by generations of biographers and
historians to come ... because she celebrates the biographer's art as at once compelling, horribly difficult and significant.' - Inga Clendinnen, London Review of Books
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| Description | | - A fascinating examination, by a leading biographer and critic, of the biographer's art: its choices and challenges, and the effects of these on what the reader actually learns about the subject.
- Written with warmth and conviction, and intimately informed by the writer's own experience as a biographer.
- This is a book to illuminate and deepen the whole experience of biography, for all readers of the genre.
| Reflections on Biography
, written by the author of an award-winning life of Daniel Defoe, is an invitation to turn 'biography' over in the mind as we turn an artefact in our hands. Intended for all readers of biography-lifelong or occasional, critical or casual-it examines the subject from many angles, and gives a tour of the decisions biographers make and the implications of those choices.
Its aim is to increase the pleasure of reading biographies, to add new, enjoyable dimensions even as it increases readers' insights into the art of writing them. Among the biographies given special attention are prize-winning lives of writers, mathematical geniuses, intellectual women, the Roosevelts, and unusual marriage partners. The book is full of lively comparisons, for instance, of Keats by
Walter Jackson Bate, Andrew Motion, and others, and of a century of biographies of Edith Wharton.
The opening chapters are on the four decisions most influential in shaping the biography and the reader's experience. The first concerns the biographer's voice, because this is the invisible bridge between biographer and reader and between reader and subject; examination of this also shows how things
are hidden from the ordinary reader of biography. The other decisions are about choosing the subject; evidence; and theories of personality. The remaining chapters cover multiple forms of biography, consider additional choices in the differing contexts of work by feminist, British professional, and African-American biographers, and look towards the form's future directions and challenges.
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| Contents |
Introduction
The Basics
The voice of the Biographer
Living with the Subject
Evidence: 'Bare Patches and Profusions'
Perspective, Personality, and Life Shapes
Expansions
Feminist Pressures
Pushing the Envelope
British Professionals and African-American Academics
Conclusion
Bibliography: Biography; Theory; General
Index
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| Authors, editors,
and contributors |
Paula R. Backscheider, Pepperell-Philpott Eminent Scholar, Auburn University
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The specification in this catalogue, including without
limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations,
and month of publication, was as accurate as
possible at the time the catalogue was compiled.
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