List of Must Read Biography Books

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Henry James by Leon Edel - A five-volume biography of the famous American author.

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James Joyce by Richard Ellmann - A modern example of literary biography, with a close reading of major texts.

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Edith Wharton: A Biography by RWB Lewis - Full of scholarship and astute readings, with a fine general sense of the times as well.

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The Life of Langston Hughes by Arnold Rampersad

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Summons the rich world of the Harlem Renaissance and reveals the depth of African-American literary consciousness.

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Dickens by Peter Ackroyd - A biography of the famous British author.

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Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

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A vast shelf of biographies of the Bard exists, but this is the book that stands out.

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Tolstoy by A N Wilson - A biography of the great Russian author.

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The Imperfect Life of T S Eliot by Lyndall Gordon - A biography that challenges the somewhat stodgy view of Eliot put forward by others

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The World Is What It Is by Patrick French - A biography of V S Naipaul, wildly entertaining as well as informative.

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FOR MORE OF SUCH RECOMMENDATIONS

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