Biographies have always been controversial. On his deathbed, the novelist Henry James told his nephew that his “sole wish” was to “frustrate as utterly as possible the postmortem exploiter” by ...

A life story can be read for escapist pleasure. But at other times, reading a memoir or biography can be an expansive exercise, opening us up to broader truths about our world. Often, it’s an edifying ...

Literary "It-girls" and their complicated legacies. Candid reflections on lives fractured by devastating injuries. Art world excess. And a deep dive into what it truly means to be a sociopath. This ...

1. It’s barely 30 years old, but this feels like the Great Granddaddy of philosophical biography. The book’s subtitle, “The Duty of Genius,” perfectly captures the subject. If the Austrian-born Ludwig ...

ALTHOUGH I WRITE biographies, as well as mini-biographies week by week in the form of The Economist’s obituaries, I’m not a great reader of them. Too often they leave me dissatisfied, feeling that ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Biographies have always been controversial. On his deathbed, the novelist Henry James told his nephew that his “sole wish” was to ...