In The Literary Biography, Dale Salwak brings together nineteen essays, most of them written especially for the volume, on what has been called 'the most delicate and humane of all the branches of the art of writing' - the biography, in this instance, the literary biography. Thoughtfully assembled and elegantly presented, this distinguished collection will be an indispensable guide for the nonspecialist as well as the specialist, for biographers, would-be biographers, and readers in general who are eager to learn about the practical and theoretical aspects of trying to create what Maurois called 'this magnificent poetry of life'.

Table of Contents

Introduction - Acknowledgements - Notes on the Contributors - A Culture of Biography; J.Kaplan -Biography: The 'Scarlet Experiment'; A.Alpers - Those Wonderful Youths & Maidens, My Reviewers; N.J.Hall - The Necrophiliac Art?; M.Stannard - Read That Countenance; C.Aird -Reflections on Writing the Plath Biography; L.Wagner-Martin - Problems and Pratfalls of a Literary Biographer; R.Fraser - The Red Room: Stephen Crane and Me; L.H.Davis - Discovering Kingsley Amis; D.Salwak - Spinning Straw into Gold; D.Wood Middlebrook - On Being a Witness; K.Ramsland - Private and Public Lives; N.Spender - Mather, Poe, Houdini; K.Silverman - Breaking In; A.Motion - Shilling Lives: An Interview; A.Curtis - The Authorised Biographer; E.Jacobs -Sharing the Role: The Biographer as Sleuth; M.Lewis - Reflections of a Biographer; E.Longford -The Biographer's Revenge; J.Halperin - Notes - Related Works - Index