Autobiography
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The 20 Best Biographies of Writers
The best biographies of writers cut through the gossip, the scandals, the myths, and the legends to deftly balance the life of the author with their literary legacy. This list features the best literary biographies of writers who penned classic works across more than four hundred years of literary history. From Shakespeare to Richard Wright to Mary Shelley and Virginia Woolf, these favorite biographies of writers encompass a deep bench of the best biographies of famous writers. Let’s dive in!
But first, if you’re interested in more of the best literary biographies, be sure to check out our list of the 10 best biographies of poets:
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And now for an epic list of the 20 best biographies of writers…
Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley
Agatha Christie, one of the “Masters of Suspense,” lived a remarkable life while penning classics like Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None. Read all about it in Lucy Worsley’s Agatha Christie: An El 50 You’re probably familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo, the 1844 revenge novel by Alexandre Dumas. But did you know it was based on the life of Dumas’s father, the mixed-race General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, son of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave? Thanks to Reiss’s masterful pacing and plotting, this rip-roaring biography of Thomas-Alexandre reads more like an adventure novel than a work of nonfiction. The Black Count won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2013, and it’s only a matter of time before a filmmaker turns it into a big-screen blockbuster. 49 Following are literary biographies reviewed by The New York Times Book Review since Dec. 31, 2000. Copyright ©cafebee.pages.dev 2025•
The 50 Best Biographies of All Time
Crown The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, by Craig Brown
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Literary Biographies
By EVELYN C. WHITE
Evelyn C. White traces the writer's life from her days as the child of Georgia sharecroppers to the international triumph of "The Color Purple."
Allen Tate: Orphan of the South
By THOMAS A. UNDERWOOD
A biography of the critic Allen Tate focuses on his Southern aesthetics.
Anthony Blunt: His Lives
By MIRANDA CARTER
Miranda Carter has written a biography of the enigmatic art historian who was surveyor of Britain's royal pictures and a secret Soviet spy.
Anthony Powell: A Life
By MICHAEL BARBER
The first full-length life of Powell is chatty and jokey in a manner peculiar to British biographers.
The Art of Burning Bridges: A Life of John O'Hara
By GEOFFREY WOLFF
Geoffrey Wolff looks past John O'Hara's reputation as an ogre to get to the writer who shook up 20th-century fiction.
Arthur Miller: His Life and Work
By MARTIN GOTTFRIED
Martin Gottfried’s biography tra