‘WHAT is biography for? What useful purpose does it serve? Why should one write it? What is its actual importance in the field of literature? Above all, what is autobiography for, and what proper ...

THE art of biography, we say — but at once go on to ask, Is biography an art? The question is foolish perhaps, and ungenerous certainly, considering the keen pleasure that biographers have given us.

Zachary Leader’s book on Richard Ellmann’s landmark work on James Joyce asks whether a biographer can be considered an artist ...