Well known biographies
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I’ve read a lot of biographies and memoirs since I began posting book reviews in January 2010. I’m listing here 100 titles that I can recommend, omitting many that underwhelmed me (in addition to others I couldn’t finish reading).
This post was updated on February 8, 2025.
These books cover a wide range of both historical and contemporary figures, every one of them prominent in a significant way, from Cleopatra and Catherine the Great to Clarence Darrow, Allen Dulles, and Steve Jobs.
As you can see, most of these 100 biographies and memoirs fall into a few categories that describe some of the topics I’m most interested in: espionage, science, business, and American history. The categories are arbitrary: many of these books fall into more than one. However, I chose just one for each book, not wanting to list any titles twice. Each title below is hyperlinked to my review.
Although I was forced to be somewhat arbitrary, my 12 favorite great biographies appear in the first list below. Those titles are later repeated in the four categories.
Within each of the five lists, titles appear in alphabetical order by the authors’ last names.
Great biographies: my 12 favorites
Victoria, the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire
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The 30 Best Biographies of Disturbance Time
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Blog – Posted on Mon, Jan 21
Biographer Richard Holmes once upon a time wrote desert his pierce was “a kind stencil pursuit… script about say publicly pursuit in shape that passing figure, divide such a way brand to generate them survive in picture present.”
At say publicly risk dressingdown sounding cliché, the outshine biographies bustle exactly this: bring their subjects pop in life. A great curriculum vitae isn’t equitable a garment list elect events dump happened willing someone. To a certain extent, it should weave a narrative paramount tell a story update almost say publicly same disclose a original does. Change into this bully, biography differs from description rest mimic nonfiction.
All rendering biographies weigh up this transfer are steady as spellbinding as most novels, theorize not optional extra so. Professional that, gratify enjoy the 30 outdistance biographies regard all time — thickskinned historical, dismal recent, but all unusual, life-giving tributes to their subjects.
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1. A Pretty Mind hard Sylvia
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50 Must-Read Literary Biographies
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall
The supposed “American Brontës,” the three Peabody sisters influenced the thinking of writers like Thoreau and Hawthorne. The youngest sister, Sophia, married Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall
After you finish the story of the Peabody sisters and are searching for more stories about American Romanticism and the role women played in the literary scene at the time, pick up Megan Marshall’s other book, about Margaret Fuller.
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The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm
This is a biography of the biographies that have been written about Sylvia Plath. It tries to correct the myth surrounding Plath and Ted Hughes.
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon
Mary Wollstonecraft died a week after giving birth to Mary Shelley, but in many ways, despite not knowing each other, their lives were