Lives for Sale: Biographers' Tales

Lives for Sale: Biographers' Tales

by Bloomsbury (Author)

Synopsis

Biography is well recognised as a peculiarly British vice. Lives for Sale is an anthology of essays by some of the best biographers now writing in Britain. They tell of the ups and downs of life writing: of problems with families and friends of their subjects, of shocking new discoveries, and of bitter professional rivalries. There are impassioned pieces in favour of biography, and others that describe disenchantment with an attempt to capture another human being in the pages of a book. Published in the autumn of 2004 to coincide with the appearance of the most important British publishing enterprise of the new century to date, the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Lives for Sale is full of amusing anecdotes and fascinating experiences retold by some of the masters of the form, including Michael Holroyd, Fiona MacCarthy, Graham Robb, Andrew Roberts, Hermione Lee, Margaret Forster, Jenny Uglow, Antonia Fraser, as well as contributions from the rising generation, and an essay by Beryl Bainbridge on Waiting for the Biographer.

$3.25

Save:$21.80 (87%)

Quantity

1 in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: Continuum
Published: 01 Sep 2004

ISBN 10: 0826475736
ISBN 13: 9780826475732

Media Reviews
One of our favorite books of 2004 --New York Newsday, December 2004
wonderfully entertaining --The Tablet (UK), November 2004
wonderfully entertaining The Tablet (UK), November 2004
an entertaining ragbag of very brief and light essays by biographers. The Spectator (UK) November 2004
One of our favorite books of 2004 New York Newsday, December 2004
The story of the writing of a biography can be almost as enthralling as the biography itself, viz Adam Sisman s tale of Boswell, who sacrificed his marriage to writing his life of Johnson. Andrew Motision says writing Larkin s life nearly killed him. So I relished Mark Bostridge s late-summer series Lives for Sale: Biographer s Tales. The Oldie
Concerns for accuracy and detail seem to cut across all biographers' discussion of their work, and how they respond to this need is varied and will be of interest to those writers and historians looking to take up the art. Library Journal, January 15, 2005--Sanford Lakoff Library Journal
Author Bio
Mark Bostridge's books include Vera Brittain: A Life, shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Award, the NCR Prize for Non-Fiction, and the Fawcett Prize, and the bestselling Letters From a Lost Generation. He is currently writing a biography of Florence Nightingale.