Dec 30, 2009

Eminent Victorians | Topics for Further Study

Mark Twain wrote, ‘‘Biography is the clothes and buttons of the man, but the real biography of a man is lived in his head twenty-four hours a day, and that you can never know.’’ Was Twain right? Can a biographer ever really capture the essence of another person’s life? If someone were to write a biography of you, how would they know what you are really like?

Should a biographer feel some empathy or affection for his subject to create a realistic portrait? If the biographer dislikes the subject, should he or she still write the biography? What difficulties might arise...