|
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Biography: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
It would be hard to think of anyone better to provide a crisp contribution to OUP's Very Short Introductions. (Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian )
A sophisticated overview for the general reader. (Andrew Lycett, Literary Review )
Enjoyable book on the subject. (Henry Power, TLS )
A sophisticated overview for the general reader. (Andrew Lycett, Literary Review )
Enjoyable book on the subject. (Henry Power, TLS )
Product Description
Biography is one of the most popular, best-selling, and widely-read of literary genres. But why do certain people and historical events arouse so much interest? How can biographies be compared with history and works of fiction? Does a biography need to be true? Is it acceptable to omit or conceal things? Does the biographer need to personally know the subject? Must a biographer be subjective? In this Very Short Introduction Hermione Lee considers the cultural and historical background of different types of biographies, looking at the factors that affect biographers and whether there are different strategies, ethics, and principles required for writing about one person compared to another. She also considers contemporary biographical publications and considers what kind of 'lives' are the most popular and in demand.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a short but detailed overview of what biography is and where it comes from. Professor Hermione Lee combines high academic achievement with a down-to-earth approach which makes her readable and enjoyable to anyone with an interest in knowing more about Biography, at whatever level. She is not frightening, but clear and it is amazing how much she has covered in this tiny volume - a positive Tardis of information.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Biography is a story of someone's life, and biographies have been written for as long as people had been interested in lives of others. This very short introduction takes us on a trip throughout centuries at exploring the genre, it's ever evolving conventions and the basic requirements that we expect from all good biographies. The main focus of the book is the British biographies, with a few others used as examples. There are no biographical examples from non-western sources, unless you count those from the Bible. Nonetheless, even with these constraints we get to see a vast variety of approaches to biography. Some biographers had intimate first-hand knowledge of their subject, while other wrote from a vast spatial and temporal distance, relying solely on secondhand sources. Another big difference that biography as a genre has undergone is the change of mores that nowadays puts a stronger stress on disreputable and salacious aspects of one's life. This is a far cry from "exemplary lives" model that had been popular in the past, which had presupposed the purpose of biography to be enlightenment and edification of the public.
Reading about biography in abstract can be rather boring. Luckily, this book is replete with examples from various notable biographies. However, if you are not interested in biography as a genre you may not get too much out of reading this book.
Reading about biography in abstract can be rather boring. Luckily, this book is replete with examples from various notable biographies. However, if you are not interested in biography as a genre you may not get too much out of reading this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There is an astonishing amount of information crammed into this short introduction to biography. I bought it because I was looking for advice on how to write a biography and from that point of view I was disappointed. This is not a 'how-to' book. However, this book does look at lots of aspects of biography and why readers are so drawn to reading about other people's lives. It also looks at how styles of biography have changed and the ethics involved and I did enjoy reading it. My only grumble is the size of the print which is rather small and not for people with any kind of sight/eye problem. Reviewed by Mary Smith No More Mulberries
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
