Biographies

The 20 best biographies and autobiographies of all time

Fascinating lives captured impeccably: these are the best biographies and autobiographies of all time

Lives of the Caesars

Suetonius (c121AD)

Suetonius was private secretary to the emperor Hadrian and although this group biography of the  lives of the 12 Caesars might need an occasional pinch of strict historical salt, it is full of decadence and colourful detail it.

Martin Amis (2000)

Easily Martin Amis’s best book, in which he leaves behind the struggle for effect, stops trying to say anything serious, and in doing so creates something effective and serious about his early life, his relations with his father, the death of his cousin, his various artistic rivalries, and, of course, those teeth.

A Moveable Feast

Ernest Hemingway (posthumously 1964)

 

Published three years after his death, this is part road trip, part love letter to Paris, part study of his friendship with characters such as F Scott Fitzgerald, and wholly wonderful.

The Life of Samuel Johnson

James Boswell (1791)

Less a biography and more an act of homage, this volume not only provides a close-up of the great lexicographer, in all his terrific wit and travels, it also brings to life an entire era. Often hugely funny – and Boswell omits no details.

Eminent Victorians

Lytton Strachey (1918)

Written throughout the Great War – and some think thematically influenced by this cataclysm – this pioneering and witty group biography of major Victorians was the first to dissolve the popular image of that era’s morality and thought.

Goodbye to All That

Robert Graves (1929)

Although Graves recounts the days of his childhood and the early years of his marriage, it is his chronicle of the First World War and his unflinching depiction of life in the trenches – the deadening banality of that horror – that gives this book its enduring force. His comrade Siegfried Sassoon was not happy about some of the descriptions.

The Moon's a Balloon

David Niven (1972)

These only semi-credible memoirs come from a seemingly happier, simpler time, and deal with the first half of the actor’s life as he made his way from Sandhurst to Hollywood. Packed with great stories, they are irresistibly charming.

The Rings of Saturn

W G Sebald (1995)

Ostensibly a memoir of Sebald’s walking tour around Suffolk, this extraordinary and profoundly haunting work is also about the echoes in landscape, the long shadows of history and the inescapability of the past – from sea-submerged villages to air force bases from which bombers flew in the war.

The Diaries of Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys (1660-69)

Probably as close as we can get to a time machine, Pepys famously witnesses the Great Fire of London; but more gripping throughout these hypnotically copious journals is the texture of life and love in 17th-century London

De Profundis

Oscar Wilde (1897)

The Latin title translates as “from the depths”, and this 50,000-word letter addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas was written while Wilde was in jail. It examines their time together and details Wilde’s spiritual development during his incarceration.

Alan Clark: Diaries (Vol I)

Alan Clark (1993)

Far exceeding anything he might ever have achieved in office, the late Tory MP’s diaries remain a classic of outspoken invective, political plotting, vividly unpleasant character portraits and a relish-filled panorama of the snakepit that is Parliament.

The Autobiography of Alice B Tokias

Gertrude Stein (1933)

About as modernist as one can get, this is actually art collector Gertrude Stein’s biography, written in the voice of her lover, Alice B Toklas. Stein was close friends with Picasso – he painted her in the manner of a stone idol – and was right at the centre of the Parisian art and literary vortex.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

T E Lawrence (1922)

An account of Lawrence’s experiences during the Arab Revolt of 1917 when he fought the Ottomans with Emir Faisal, capturing Aqaba and winning the Battle of Tafileh. The romanticism of the imagery captured in photographs – Lawrence in full Bedouin dress out in the desert – made him a sensation back in Britain.

Testament of Youth

Vera Brittain (1933)

In the Great War, Brittain was a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse. She lost her fiancé on the Western Front, then her brother and then her two closest male friends. She vowed to write their stories, and about her war experiences, as a form of a memorial.

My Family and Other Animals

Gerald Durrell (1956)

This account of naturalist Durrell’s childhood years in Corfu is an unforgettable blend of wonderful human comedy – the foibles of older relatives and family associates as seen through a child’s eyes – plus those same eyes looking in wonder at the abundance and variety of wildlife in the world around.

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell (1938)

A memoir of a searingly intense time: Orwell’s months in Spain during the Civil War, when he fought the fascists alongside mountain peasants. Among many unforgettable images – the terror in Barcelona, the moment he was shot in the neck – was the pervasiveness of the lice, and their fondness for trousers.

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank (1947)

The story is so well rehearsed and yet the details still astound; not merely the fear and the claustrophobia, but the different shades of human behaviour and endurance. The nightmarish circumstances of her deportation and death in Bergen-Belsen mean that no matter how familiar her story may feel, no one should ever overlook it.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou (1969)

The poet’s hugely influential biography (this was the first volume, dwelling on her early years) was on the US bestseller lists for two years. The story of her childhood is harrowing – the racism of the deep south but it is also to do with the freedom that literacy and poetry brings.

Wild Swans

Jung Chang (1991)

Following the lives of three generations of the Chang family through the turmoil of 20th-century China, this biography is a personal account that casts incandescent light on the lives and experiences of ordinary Chinese people in extraordinary and often evil times.

Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects

Giorgio Vasari (1550)

The biographical work that laid the foundations for Renaissance art history,Vasari made the reputations of many of the “Old Masters” but he also peppers his “lives” with vivid detail – including allegations that Andrea del Castagno murdered Domenico Veneziano, a claim that is still controversial today.

Here are some more to read about

Walden Henry -David Thoreau (1854)

The Life of Charlotte Brontë- Elizabeth Gaskell (1857)

Out of Africa-Karen Blixen (1937)

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men-James Agee and Walker Evans (1941)

Churchill: A life-Martin Gilbert (1969)

The Double Helix-James Watson (1968)

The Year of Magical Thinking-Joan Didion (2005)

Peter the Great: His Life and World-Robert K Massie (1981)

Maus-Art Spiegelman (1991)

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius-Dave Eggers (2000)

Steve Jobs-Walter Isaacson (2011)

Persepolis-Marjane Satrapi (2000)

Anthony Blunt: His Lives-Miranda Carter (2001)

Giving up the Ghost-Hilary Mantel (2003)

The Hare with the Amber Eyes-Edmund de Waal (2010)

Here is brief description for you on how to write  Biographies

http://sanjukta.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Biographical-Sketch.pdf