"Acquainted with all the modes of life"

the difficulty of biography

Isobel Grundy

pp. 107-124

in: Warwick Gould, Thomas F. Staley (eds), Writing the lives of writers, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998

Abstract

The conference "Writing the Lives of Writers' made it clear that most biographers feel biography to be immensely difficult. Speaker after speaker reiterated this point with wit, with style, and with deep feeling.