Genet

The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith

Joan Schenkar · 704 pages

Patricia Highsmith, one of the great writers of 20th Century American fiction, had a life as darkly compelling as that of her favorite "hero-criminal," talented Tom Ripley. In this revolutionary biography, Joan Schenkar paints a riveting portrait, from Highsmith's birth in Texas to Hitchcock's filming of her first novel, Strangers On a Train, to her long, strange, self-exile in Europe. We see he

Hemingway in Love: His Own Story

A.E. Hotchner · 182 pages

"In June of 1961, A.E. Hotchner visited an old friend in the psychiatric ward of St. Mary's Hospital. It would be the last time they spoke: a few weeks later, Ernest Hemingway was released home, where he took his own life. Their final conversation was also the final installment in a story whose telling Hemingway had spread over nearly a decade. Hemingway divulged the details of the affair that des

Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs

Ted Morgan, William S. Burroughs · 659 pages

Describes the life of Burroughs, a renegade author who killed his wife, had his books banned, was educated at Harvard, came from an upper-middle-class family and lived his life as a gay man and heroin addict.

Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath

Paul Alexander · 424 pages

Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor

Brad Gooch · 448 pages

The landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life O'Connor's significant friendships--with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick,

J.D. Salinger: A Life

Kenneth Slawenski · 457 pages

One of the most popular and mysterious figures in American literary history, J.D. Salinger eluded fans and journalists for most of his life. Now comes a new biography. Filled with new information and revelations garnered from countless interviews, letters, and public records, this work presents his extraordinary life that spanned nearly the entire twentieth century. Kenneth Slawenski explores Sali

Daughter Of Earth And Water: A Biography Of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Noel Bertram Gerson

The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion

Tracy Daugherty · 700 pages

"In The Last Love Song, Tracy Daugherty, the critically acclaimed author of Hiding Man (a New Yorker and New York Times Notable book) and Just One Catch, delves deep into the life of distinguished American author and journalist Joan Didion in this, the first printed biography published about her life. Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory

Jane Austen: A Life

Carol Shields · 188 pages

With the same sensitivity and artfulness that are the trademarks of her award-winning novels, Carol Shields explores the life of a writer whose own novels have engaged and delighted readers for the past two hundred years. In Jane Austen, Shields follows this superb and beloved novelist from her early family life in Steventown to her later years in Bath, her broken engagement, and her intense relat

The Private World of Georgette Heyer

Jane Aiken Hodge · 222 pages

The classic biography of Georgette Heyer is, finally, back in print and will delight Heyer fans everywhere. She wrote more than fifty novels, yet her private life was inaccessible to any but her nearest friends and relatives. Lavishly illustrated, and with extracts from her correspondence and references to her work, The Private World reveals a formidable and energetic woman with an impeccable s

Edith Wharton

Hermione Lee · 866 pages

From Hermione Lee, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning biographer of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather, comes a superb reexamination of one of the most famous American women of letters.Delving into heretofore untapped sources, Lee does away with the image of the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new Edith Wharton-tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as her fiction. Born in

The Life of Charlotte Brontë

Elizabeth Gaskell · 448 pages

Intertwining fact and story, The Life of Charlotte Bronte takes the reader by one hand and Charlotte Bronte by the other to run rampant through the making of one of the greatest authoresses of all time. Follow Charlotte from her birthplace of Thornton as she sets off for school and later returns to teach her sisters, and come to know the “characteristic kindness of the Brontes.” This unsentimental

Virginia Woolf: A Biography

Quentin Bell · 314 pages

Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961

Paul Hendrickson · 532 pages

Paul Hendrickson has delved into the life of Ernest Hemingway and done the seemingly impossible: present him to us in a whole new light. With poetic sensibility, tireless research, and dazzling writing, Hendrickson focuses on the period from 1934 to 1961, from the pinnacle of Hemingway's fame to his suicide.

Jane Austen: A Life

Claire Tomalin · 358 pages

Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart

Claire Harman · 472 pages

"A groundbreaking biography that places an obsessive, unrequited love at the heart of the writer's life story, transforming her from the tragic figure we have previously known into a smoldering Jane Eyre. Famed for her beloved novels, Charlotte Brontë has been known as well for her insular, tragic family life. The genius of this biography is that it delves behind this image to reveal a life in whi

Tolstoy: A Russian Life

Rosamund Bartlett · 552 pages

Bartlett draws extensively on key Russian sources, including much fascinating new material made available since the collapse of the Soviet Union. She sheds light on Tolstoy's remarkable journey from callow youth to writer to prophet; discusses his troubled relationship with his wife, Sonya, a subject long neglected; and vividly evokes the Russian landscapes Tolstoy so loved. Above all, she gives u

The Brontës: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of Three Sisters

Juliet Barker · 1,158 pages

A history of the Brontë family is based on years of research and correspondence by each family member, challenging traditionally accepted portraits of the patriarchal Patrick and revealing Charlotte's ruthless nature.

Byron in Love

Edna O'Brien · 228 pages

Biographer Edna O'Brien has written an intimate biography that suits her fiery and charismatic subject. She follows Byron from the dissipations of Regency London to the wilds of Albania and the Socratic pleasures of Greece and Turkey, culminating in his meteoric rise to fame at the age of 24 on the publication of Childe Harold. With her prismatic eye and novelistic style, O'Brien captures the spir

The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane

William Holtz · 448 pages

Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life

Howard Sounes · 309 pages

Locked in The Arms of a Crazy Life is the acclaimed biography of Charles Bukowski, the hard-drinking barfly whose semi-autobiographical books about low-life America made him a cult figure across the globe. Extensive research and unique contributions from friends, family and associates - including Mickey Rourke, Harry Dean Stanton, Robert Crumb, Sean Penn, Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg - as well

Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers

Deborah Heiligman · 355 pages

This incredible story about brotherly love and the famous artist who was shaped by it is a meticulously researched account of the Van Gogh brothers' intertwined lives.

Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller

Judith Thurman · 511 pages

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

John Lahr · 765 pages

Here, celebrated drama critic John Lahr gives intimate access to the mind of one of the most brilliant dramatists of his century, whose plays reshaped the American theater and the nation's sense of itself. This astute, deeply researched biography sheds light on Williams's warring family, his guilt, his creative triumphs and failures, his sexuality and numerous affairs, his misreported death, even