Secondhand Literary Biography Books

Following on from Osborne's first autobiographical book, "A Better Class of Person", this book looks at the period 1955 to 1966. It covers the foundation of the English Stage Company...

Based on letters and journals and youthful ledger books never before made available, and on interviews with descendants, this is a full and lively life of the prolific Victorian writer...

In July 1944, a French Air Force reconnaissance plane disappeared on a mission to the Alps. Neither the pilot, 44-year-old Antoine de St Exupery, nor the plane were ever traced....

Even as a young girl, growing up in the Bronx, Mary Higgins Clark knew she wanted to be a writer. The gift of storytelling was a part of her Irish...

One hundred years after his first novel was published P.G. Wodehouse still promises a release from everyday cares into a paradise of innocent comic mayhem. His many books are still...

This is a detailed textual and critical study of all Yeats's important autobiographical prose, concentrating on the book ^IAutobiographies but considering other texts as well. Contents: Introduction; John Sherman and^R...

'A truly remarkable writer, one of the most gifted non-fiction authors alive' Simon Schama, Financial TimesSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARDThis is the autobiography that John Aubrey never wrote.You...

The "Young Dog" of the title is of course Thomas himself, and this volume of autobiographical stories by the great modern poet, who died at 39 while on his third...

A major new biography of Eugene O'Neill, the Nobel Prize-winning dramatist who revolutionized American theater"Restores balance to the slightly skewed twenty-first century reputation of America's greatest playwright. . . ....

James Baldwin was born into the squalor of a Harlem tenement and transcended an early life of setbacks and racism. A storefront preacher at the age of fourteen, he supported...

John Stubbs's Donne: the Reformed Soul brings one of Britain's most famous poets - and famous periods in history - to life.John Donne's life story is inextricably tied up with...

'A delightful companion in life and on the page' The Times'Donna Leon has created a beautifully crafted looking glass into her world' TLSIn a series of vignettes full of affection,...

Both George Painter's and Andre Maurois's biographies were written too early to take advantage of the first reliable edition of Proust's correspondence, or of the manuscripts and corrected proofs which...

This biography of Genet explores the perverse extremes of his life and writing, and separates the fact from the mythology which was fostered by Genet himself. Edmund White has interviewed...

John Lahr, New Yorker critic, novelist, and biographer reconstructs both the life and death of Joe Orton, an extraordinary and anarchic playwright, whose plays scandalised and delighted the public, and...

Novelist, culture critic, essayist, historian, comic satirist, image maker, actor, homosexual, bisexual, controversial, confrontational - finding words to describe Gore Vidal is never difficult. And yet, an accurate picture of...

The definitive biography of the war poet - 'Dominic Hibberd has probably done more more than any other individual to illuminate Owen's life and work. His new Life is a...

'As good as being in the gallery. Enthralling.' Peter Ackroyd, The Times The original transcript of the famous Wilde vs Queensberry trial, containing previously unseen details and exchanges. With extensive...

Based on fact, but told with the imagination of a novelist, Strangers is the story of the author's family, the Tennants. Margot Asquith and Pamela Tennant (nee Wyndham), warring sisters-in-law;...

Virginia Woolf was undoubtedly one of the literary giants of the twentieth century. She was a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group, and her writings were works of astonishing originality....

'A consistently enthralling work.' Spectator'Absorption in a male ethos and unease about feminine dominion, whether amatory or domestic, give Miller's plays their special colour, force and intensity. Martin Gottfried's enthralling...

Autobiographical and idiosyncratic, this is a collection of Alan Bennett's prose writings, assembled by Bennett himself from over a quarter of a century of diaries, reminiscences, broadcasting and reviews. It...