Works on Paper : The Craft of Biography and Autobiography

Holroyd, Michael

ISBN 10: 0316856789 / ISBN 13: 9780316856782

Published by Little, Brown & Company, United Kingdom, 2002

About this Item

First edition, first impression 2002 SIGNED dedication by Michael Holroyd near fine hardback, page edges and page margins lightly browned, in a near fine dust wrapper. No inscription. Not price clipped. 319 pages.

Seller Inventory # 0014171

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Works on Paper : The Craft of Biography and Autobiography
• Publisher: Little, Brown & Company, United Kingdom
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0316856789
• ISBN 13: 9780316856782
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

Michael Holroyd opens with a startling attack on biography, which is answered by two essays on the ethics and values of non-fiction writing. The book then examines 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from Osbert Sitwell to Quentin Crisp - to which he adds some adventures of his own, in particular an important and unpublished piece THE MAKING OF GBS, a riveting story of internecine literary warfare.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.

About the Author

Michael Holroyd is the author of numerous biographies including Lytton Strachey, Augustus John, George Bernard Shaw. BASIL STREET BLUES (September 1999), his family autobiography, garnered 50% more end-of-year critics' choices than any other work of non-fiction that year.