Biography: An Annotated Bibliography (ISBN 0595454852)

Outstanding and Entertaining Work of Scholarship!:
This is a marvelously annotated bibliography with lavish descriptions of every entry. A couple of typical items from the hundreds that appear here: Morris, Edmund, "The Art of Biography," in Biography and Books, edited by John Y. Cole. Washington,D.C., Library of Congress, 1986. Citing Boswell and other biographers, Morris argues eloquently that "reality cannot be truthfully represented without honest distortion," even as the Greeks created a Parthenon "slightly out of synch" because it would look "straighter that way." Morris also suggests that biography can learn to unify its presentation of lives through the study of motifs in music and themes in the novel. Yet he urges biographers to eschew Freud: "The ideal biographer should be godlike in the Flaubertian sense--apparent everywhere, visible nowhere." Or like the photographer who steps back out of the picture after arranging it. ____ Holmes, Richard, Coleridge: Early Visions. New York, Viking Press, 1990. In his "traditional narrative," Holmes has tried to experiment: to set Coleridge "talking," rendering as many episodes as possible through his subject's "flights of phrase and metaphor." He also has provided footnotes, not to document or expand on the text but to "initiate another level of speculation, a third perspective--besides those of Coleridge and his narrator." This "down stage voice" represents a sort of "gloss" on the narrative, which in itself reflects the dominion of the subject over his biographer." ---- This is an outstanding and entertaining work of scholarship. This book will lead you to other treasures, including the other works of the author. Highly recommended!

Not just a reference book.:
This might be a first: an annotated bibliography that you cannot put down. Besides having the qualities desirable in a reference book--thorough treatment of the subject, well-organized--Professor Rollyson's book is enjoyable on its own account. I am a newcomer to the field of biography, and Rollyson's entries have suggested lines of research that might otherwise not have occurred to me for months or years.

A new edition in paper that will be priced at under $20:
My bibliography has been cited by a number of biographers and scholars who have found it very useful. The hardcover is going out of print, but the good news is that iUniverse has just reprinted the book in paperback for about a third of the hardcover price.