Literary biographies

[Bookwyrm]

In the past few years I've come to love reading well written, thoroughly researched biographies of my favorite authors (I have a strong preference for British classics); Juliet Barker's The Brontës is one of my favorite books and I love Claire Tomalin's contributions to the genre of literary biography as well. Does anyone have any recommendations for similar biographies?

Richard Ellmann’s biography of Oscar Wilde is magnificent. And I say that as someone who rarely reads biographies.

I found Juliet Barker’s edited Bronte letters a brilliant companion to the group biographies, and have you read Lucasta Miller’s The Bronte Myth? Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen biography is as intelligent and well-researched as you’d expect, if you haven’t yet read it, and I read her 2011 Dickens one throughout labouring with DS. Hermione Lee’s Virginia Woolf is brilliant, also her Edith Wharton biography, actually anything by HL. James Shapiro’s 1599 (year in the life of Shakespeare, when he wrote As You Lije It, Henry V, Julius Caesar and Hamlet).

What about poets? I love Richard Holmes’s Shelley: the Pursuit, and his essays on writing Romantic biography. Claire Harman’sFanny Burney? Jonathan Bate’s John Clare biography? Frances Wilson’s The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth is brilliant.

Janet Malcolm’s The Silent Woman, preferably read alongside Anne Stephenson’s life of Sylvia Plath? Another two not British but highly recommended, are Judith Thurman’s biographies of Karen Blixen and Colette.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

I've read Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, both which I loved. I am off to look for the other books right now!

Slightly more modern period, but Valerie Lawson's biography of PL Travers (author of Mary Poppins) is fascinating. Rupert Brooke: Life Death & Myth by Nigel Jones is also work seeking out.

Haven't read it yet but The Fall of the House of Byron looks good - it's on my wish list.

I really enjoyed Elizabeth Gaskells Life of Charlotte Bronte (even though they were friends and it’s not completely factual!). Other than that, off the top of my head ‘Mary Wollstonecraft- A New Genus’ by Lyndall Gordon, ‘ George Eliot - The Last Victorian’ by Kathryn Hughes, ‘Virginia Woolf - An Inner Life’ by Julia Briggs and finally ‘Portrait of a Marriage’ written by Vita Sackville West’s son who’s name completely escapes me!

@SJaneS49

I really enjoyed Elizabeth Gaskells Life of Charlotte Bronte (even though they were friends and it’s not completely factual!). Other than that, off the top of my head ‘Mary Wollstonecraft- A New Genus’ by Lyndall Gordon, ‘ George Eliot - The Last Victorian’ by Kathryn Hughes, ‘Virginia Woolf - An Inner Life’ by Julia Briggs and finally ‘Portrait of a Marriage’ written by Vita Sackville West’s son who’s name completely escapes me!

Nigel Nicolson!

I think the Gaskell biography needs to be read alongside something else for context, because it’s so myth-making, though the Op has already read Juliet Barker’s — maybe Lucasta Miller’s The Bronte Myth, which traces how other people have constructed them, starting with Charlotte’s account of Emily in her intro to a subsequent edition of Wuthering Heights and in Shirley.

Lyndall Gordon’s Emily Dickinson’s biography is also good, if the OP is interested in 19thc American writers.

I'm enjoying 'Wodehouse - a life' by Robert McCrum - if you've enjoyed PG's writing style, and wondered about how it all came about, this is the book for you! First biography I've ever read, btw, looking at your suggestions with interest.

Talking of Elizabeth Gaskell, Jenny Uglow's biography of her is great, as is her Thomas Bewick one.

I would recommend Peter Ackroyd's biography of Blake, as well as John Lahr's fantastic 'Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh' which is about Tennessee Williams.

@Tureen that would be it!

And on Charlotte Bronte’s re-construction of her sisters, if that interests you I’ve just re-read ‘Agnes Grey’ (not sure why I bothered as I found more to dislike the second time around!) in which Penguin had chosen to include the foreword by Charlotte written on re-print after Anne’s death. Very dismissive of Anne!

Margaret Forster's biographies of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Daphne Du Maurier are both very good. I also enjoyed Hermione Lee's book on Willa Cather.

[quote SJaneS49]@Tureen that would be it!

And on Charlotte Bronte’s re-construction of her sisters, if that interests you I’ve just re-read ‘Agnes Grey’ (not sure why I bothered as I found more to dislike the second time around!) in which Penguin had chosen to include the foreword by Charlotte written on re-print after Anne’s death. Very dismissive of Anne![/quote]
It is incredibly dismissive, very 'poor dear resigned little Anne'! Whereas her far greater estimation of Emily is very clear in her introduction to Wuthering Heights.

I always want to point out that in terms of engaging with the world and holding out in deeply uncongenial governessing situations (without, as Charlotte had, the excitement of being abroad and in love with Constantin Heger in Brussels, or Emily managing to get so ill she left her only teaching job after a few months and thereafter stayed at home, apart from her shorter Brussels stint) and generally adulting, Anne comes off much the best of all four Brontes who survived to adulthood. She also was detectably the least addicted to the Gondal/Angria imaginary worlds stuff in adulthood.

(Having said that, I do prefer both Charlotte's work and Wuthering Heights to either Agnes Grey or The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Villette is my favourite novel of any of them.)

(OP - apologies for going off thread!).

I agree @Tureen. Anne quite clearly had to struggle to lead a life free of being the baby of the family and was very determined to support both herself and them financially as an equal. Charlotte’s writing is also my favourite too though (with the exception of Shirley, hate the sell out to the superiority of the masculine ending!).

Wow! Thank you to everyone for their recommendations, I can hardly wait to read them all!

@SJaneS49 No apologies needed, I could discuss the Brontës all day! I'm thrilled to see others have more than just a nodding acquaintance with their works.

The Young Romantics, by Daisy Hay

The Poets' Daughters, by Katie Waldegrave

Both a great read.

Slipstream by Elizabeth Jane Howard.

Bookridden the biography of EJH by Artemis Cooper is also very good.

I’ve recently read a biography of the Mitford sisters by Mary S Lovell. They’re not all literary, but a fascinating family. I did find the biography a bit biased though so am looking for other things about them for balance.

Charlotte Bronte by Claire Harman is very good. Detailed and well-researched.