{"product_id":"2026100007216-secondhand-the-nature-of-biography","title":"The Nature Of Biography","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Condition as shown in image\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat does it truly mean to capture a life on the page? In The Nature of Biography, distinguished poet and biographer Robert Gittings presents a penetrating examination of the art and craft of biographical writing, drawing on a rich canon of literary history to interrogate the methods, ethics, and responsibilities of the biographer. With intellectual precision and disarming candour, Gittings chronicles the evolution of the biographical form — from the hagiographies of earlier centuries to the psychologically sophisticated portraits of the modern era — arguing that the biographer's own character and limitations are as consequential as the subject's. He scrutinises the tension between fact and interpretation, the dangers of hero-worship and detraction, and the irreducible challenge of reconstructing a human consciousness from the fragments of the historical record.\n\nRooted in Gittings' own celebrated experience as the biographer of John Keats and Thomas Hardy, this work carries the rare authority of a practitioner reflecting on his own discipline with unflinching honesty. His prose is lucid and elegant, suffused with the conviction that biography, at its finest, is a moral as well as a literary act. The Nature of Biography stands as an essential text for writers, readers, and scholars alike — and its central question, whether any life can ever be truly known by another, lingers long after the final page.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49130935156955,"sku":"2026100007216-SECONDHAND","price":10.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/8a1c70e2-db90-4c74-a08e-40b3982f8a21.png?v=1786592763","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026100007216-secondhand-the-nature-of-biography","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}