Life over literature; or, whatever happened to critical biography?

John Haffenden

pp. 19-35

in: Warwick Gould, Thomas F. Staley (eds), Writing the lives of writers, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1998

Abstract

Once upon a time, as I recall, biographies of writers came with the provocatively punning subtitle "A Critical Biography"; nowadays, they are tagged simply "A Life" or at best, modestly but evasively, "A Writer's Life". As a seasoned friend said when I remarked upon this fact, it's a sign of the times. Most of these Lives are written at startling speed by journalists; they are universally written up, and extolled as "detailed and illuminating"; and they appear to sell well.