The Craft Of Literary Biography
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
What separates a masterful literary biography from a mere recounting of facts? The Craft of Literary Biography, edited by Jeffrey Meyers, brings together fourteen distinguished biographers to answer that very question, offering an authoritative and richly varied examination of the art and discipline behind some of literature's most celebrated life-writings. Each contributor — including Lyndall Gordon, Nigel Hamilton, Ronald Hayman, Frederick R. Karl, Phillip Knightley, and Elizabeth Longford, among others — chronicles their own methods, challenges, and revelations in reconstructing the lives of major literary figures, making this anthology an indispensable guide to the biographical form. The collection presents a fascinating dialogue between scholarship and artistry, arguing that the best literary biography demands not only rigorous research but also imaginative empathy and narrative skill. Meyers, himself a prolific and acclaimed biographer, assembles a chorus of expert voices that together illustrate the ethical dilemmas, archival discoveries, and interpretive choices that shape every biographical endeavour. For readers, writers, and scholars alike, this volume raises an irresistible question: when a biographer steps into a life not their own, where does fact end and interpretation begin?
Author: Jeffrey Meyers
Format: Hardback
Published: 1985, Schocken Books
Genre: Literary theory
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
What separates a masterful literary biography from a mere recounting of facts? The Craft of Literary Biography, edited by Jeffrey Meyers, brings together fourteen distinguished biographers to answer that very question, offering an authoritative and richly varied examination of the art and discipline behind some of literature's most celebrated life-writings. Each contributor — including Lyndall Gordon, Nigel Hamilton, Ronald Hayman, Frederick R. Karl, Phillip Knightley, and Elizabeth Longford, among others — chronicles their own methods, challenges, and revelations in reconstructing the lives of major literary figures, making this anthology an indispensable guide to the biographical form. The collection presents a fascinating dialogue between scholarship and artistry, arguing that the best literary biography demands not only rigorous research but also imaginative empathy and narrative skill. Meyers, himself a prolific and acclaimed biographer, assembles a chorus of expert voices that together illustrate the ethical dilemmas, archival discoveries, and interpretive choices that shape every biographical endeavour. For readers, writers, and scholars alike, this volume raises an irresistible question: when a biographer steps into a life not their own, where does fact end and interpretation begin?