Works On Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography

Description

Michael Holroyd opens this volume with a startling attack on biography, which is answered by two essays on the ethics and values of non-fiction writing. The book then goes on to examine the work of several contemporary biographers, the place of biography in fiction and of fiction in biography, and the revelations of some extravagant autobiographers, from Osbert Sitwell to Quentin Crisp - to which he adds some adventures of his own. In particular, an important and unpublished piece, "The Making of GBS", a story of internecine literary warfare. The book ends with a series of satires, celebrations, apologias and polemics which throw light not only on Michael Holroyd's progress as a biographer, but also his record as an embattled campaigner in the field of present-day literary politics.

Michael Holroyd is the author of numerous biographies including Lytton Strachey, Augustus John, George Bernard Shaw and BASIL STREET BLUES (September 1999), his family autobiography, garnered 50 percent more end-of-year critics' choices than any other work of non-fiction that year.

'Famous for writing at great length on bearded men, Holroyd emerges here as a skilled miniaturist.knowledgeable, humorous & entertaining' MAIL ON S. 'If anyone still doubts that biographers are "proper" writers, rather than mere transcribers of life's rich record, then they should read this book . Even when he's being serious - & he is deadly serious about the genre that he has served so loyally for 30 years - he is enormous fun' NEW STATESMAN