Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography
Works on Paper is a selection by one of today's leading biographers from his lectures, essays, and reviews written over the last quarter of a century—mainly on the craft of biography and autobiography, but also covering what Michael Holroyd describes as his "enthusiasms and alibis".

Opening with a startling attack on biography, which is answered by two essays on the ethics and values of non–fiction writing, the book goes on to examine the work of several contemporary biographers, the place of biography in fiction and of fiction in biography, and the revelations of some extravagant autobiographers, from Osbert Sitwell to Quentin Crisp—to which he adds some adventures of his own, in particular an important and unpublished piece The Making of GBS, a riveting story of internecine literary warfare.

The book ends with a series of satires, celebrations, apologias and polemics which throw light not only on Michael Holroyd's progress as a biographer, but also his record as an embattled campaigner in the field of present–day literary politics.
"1115775846"
Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography
Works on Paper is a selection by one of today's leading biographers from his lectures, essays, and reviews written over the last quarter of a century—mainly on the craft of biography and autobiography, but also covering what Michael Holroyd describes as his "enthusiasms and alibis".

Opening with a startling attack on biography, which is answered by two essays on the ethics and values of non–fiction writing, the book goes on to examine the work of several contemporary biographers, the place of biography in fiction and of fiction in biography, and the revelations of some extravagant autobiographers, from Osbert Sitwell to Quentin Crisp—to which he adds some adventures of his own, in particular an important and unpublished piece The Making of GBS, a riveting story of internecine literary warfare.

The book ends with a series of satires, celebrations, apologias and polemics which throw light not only on Michael Holroyd's progress as a biographer, but also his record as an embattled campaigner in the field of present–day literary politics.
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Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography

Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography

by Michael Holroyd
Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography

Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography

by Michael Holroyd

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Overview

Works on Paper is a selection by one of today's leading biographers from his lectures, essays, and reviews written over the last quarter of a century—mainly on the craft of biography and autobiography, but also covering what Michael Holroyd describes as his "enthusiasms and alibis".

Opening with a startling attack on biography, which is answered by two essays on the ethics and values of non–fiction writing, the book goes on to examine the work of several contemporary biographers, the place of biography in fiction and of fiction in biography, and the revelations of some extravagant autobiographers, from Osbert Sitwell to Quentin Crisp—to which he adds some adventures of his own, in particular an important and unpublished piece The Making of GBS, a riveting story of internecine literary warfare.

The book ends with a series of satires, celebrations, apologias and polemics which throw light not only on Michael Holroyd's progress as a biographer, but also his record as an embattled campaigner in the field of present–day literary politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781619022768
Publisher: Catapult
Publication date: 12/31/2013
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Michael Holroyd was born in 1935 and educated at Eton College. His lives of Hugh Kingsmill, Lyton Strachey, Augustus John and George Bernard Shaw have established him as one of the most influential biographers of modern times. His family autobiography, Basil Street Blues (1999) garnered the greatest number of non–fiction and end–of–year critics' choices that year. A past chairman of the Society of Authors, the Royal Society of Literature and Book Trust, past president of English PEN and a former member of the Arts Council, Michael Holroyd has lectured around the world for the British Council and at literary festivals. He is married to the novelist Margaret Drabble and lives in London and Somerset.

Table of Contents

Introductory Note xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Biographies and Biographers

The Case Against Biography 3

Smoke With Fire 10

On the Ethics of Biography

What Justifies Biography? 20

Le Grand Sherlock 32

The Whispering Gallery 38

The Case of the Blood Relative 52

Katherine Mansfield's Camping Ground 60

Three Lives 69

Joe Orton, Rudyard Kipling, E.M. Forster

Edith Sitwell 74

Vita 81

A Secret Life 89

Harley Granville Barker

'008' 96

Portraits in Miniature 99

The Dictionary of National Biography

Elizabeth Longford: A Tribute 103

Loitering With Intent 108

The Enemy Within 111

Rebecca West

H.G. Wells 114

Autobiography, Diaries and Some Letters

Bound Upon a Course 121

John Stewart Collis

Osbert and Others 130

Son and Father 135

J.R. Ackerley

Anthony Powell 139

Introducing Mr Crisp 143

Peterley Harvest 149

Evelyn Waugh 164

From the Life

The Making of Bernard Shaw 169

A Romance in E Flat Minor 184

Artist in Exile 193

Gwen John

Themes and Variations 209

Augustus John

Bloomsbury 216

Enthusiasms and Alibis

Patrick Hamilton 227

The Polyglots 242

A Month in the Country 249

A Passage to India 257

All Wrong on the Night 268

Among the Americans 275

The Battle for Public Lending Right 286

Notes Without Music 292

A Dark-Adapted Eye 304

Endpiece

Illness in England 317

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