Secondhand Literary Biography Books

'I loved this book... An exhilarating romp through Orwell's life and times' Margaret Atwood'Expansive and thought-provoking' IndependentOutside my work the thing I care most about is gardening - George OrwellInspired...

'Writers live as the work dictates, a solitary, sometimes deeply frustrating life, with moments of secret joy when the sentence hits the note, gets the meaning exactly as required.'For over...

This first full-length biography of the Nobel Laureate to appear in a quarter century explores John Steinbeck's long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression,...

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette was this century's first modern woman. She arrived in Paris around 1900 as the provincial child bride of a notorious rake and brilliant literary impressario, Willy, who signed...

What we know of Raymond Chandler is shrouded in secrets and half-truths as deceptive as anything in his magisterial novel The Long Goodbye. Now, drawing on new interviews, previously unpublished...

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Augusten Burroughs's most provocative memoir. Outrageously fuinny and scorchingly honest.You may not know it, but you've met...

In this richly illustrated portrait, a prize-winning biographer surveys the entire sweep of William Blake's creative work while telling the story of his life William Blake, overlooked in his time,...

A literary memoir of the highest calibre by this highly-regarded critic and academic. From a childhood of gothic proportions in a vicarage on the Welsh borders, through her adolescence, leaving...