biography

Introduction
Aspects
- Historical
- Psychological
- Ethical
- Aesthetic
Kinds
- Firsthand knowledge
- Research
  - Reference collections
  - Character sketches
  - Informative biography
  - Critical biography
  - “Standard” biography
  - Interpretative biography
  - Fictionalized biography
  - Fiction presented as biography
  - “Special-purpose” biography
- Informal autobiography
  - Letters, diaries, and journals
  - Memoirs and reminiscences
- Formal autobiography
- Specialized forms of autobiography
Historical development
- Western literature
  - Antiquity
  - Middle Ages
  - Renaissance
  - 17th and 18th centuries
  - 19th century
  - 20th century
- Other literatures
Biographical literature today

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

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At a Glance

biography summary

Related Questions

How are memoirs and reminiscences different from formal autobiographies?
How can a biographer write about a person when important records are missing?
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How did Chinese historical writing shape early biographies in China?
How did George Cavendish portray Cardinal Wolsey’s rise and fall?
How did Izaak Walton help establish the role of the professional biographer?
How did James Boswell gather material for Life of Samuel Johnson?
How did Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians change biography in the 1920s and 1930s?
How did Samuel Johnson’s ideas about biography emphasize everyday details?
How did Tacitus portray his father-in-law in Agricola?
How did Thomas More’s History of Richard III influence Shakespeare’s play Richard III?
How did Xenophon’s Memorabilia contribute to the portrayal of Socrates?
How did fiction influence the style and risks of modern biography?
How did psychology influence biographies written after World War I?
How did scientific research methods affect modern biographies?
How do biographers balance factual accuracy with engaging storytelling?
How do biographers organize events to show major patterns in a person’s life?
How do biographers reveal a subject’s motives and personality?
How do biographers use letters, diaries, interviews, and photographs as evidence?
How do religious autobiographies focus on spiritual experience and conversion?
How do the Gospels combine religious teaching with details about the life of Jesus?
How does biography differ from autobiography?
How does biography differ from history?
How have plays, films, and television adapted stories from biographies?
What advantages does a biographer gain from knowing the subject personally?
What are intellectual autobiographies?
What did Thomas Carlyle mean by calling overly respectful biographies “vacuum-biographies”?
When does imaginative writing in a biography become distortion of the truth?
Which autobiographical elements appear in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?
Why can a biography written by a friend of its subject be less objective?
Why can too many facts and notes make a biography difficult to read?
Why did Graham Greene call an autobiography “a sort of life”?
Why did Samuel Johnson believe that people did not need to be famous to deserve biographies?
Why did debunking biographies lose favor by World War II?
Why did writers in Elizabethan England face risks when writing truthful accounts of political figures?
Why is Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne considered close to modern biography?
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Why must biographers test the authenticity of their sources?
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What is yellow journalism?
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Literature Novels & Short Stories

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External Websites

Salt Lake Community College Pressbooks - Literary Studies at SLCC - An Introduction to Reading Biographical Texts
Corporate Finance Institute - Bio
Library of Congress - Biography (PDF)

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

biography - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
biography - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Giorgio Vasari Self-portrait, oil on canvas by Giorgio Vasari; in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

biography

narrative genre

Also known as: biographical literature

Written by

Paul Murray Kendall

Professor of English, University of Kansas, Lawrence. Author of The Art of Biography; Richard the Third; and others.

Paul Murray Kendall

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Oct. 1, 2026 •History

biography, form of literature, commonly considered nonfictional, the subject of which is the life of an individual. One of the oldest forms of literary expression, it seeks to re-create in words the life of a human being—as understood from the historical or personal perspective of the author—by drawing upon all available evidence, including that retained in memory as well as written, oral, and pictorial material. Biography is sometimes regarded as a branch of history, and...

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