British Biography: A ReaderiUniverse, 2005 M07 14 - 320 pages Biography as a literary genre is largely the product of the eighteenth century and of one seminal work, James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791). Boswell's innovations revolutionized the genre and made it the target of suppression and censorship. He sought not only to memorialize a great man but also to reveal his flaws. Boswell reported long stretches of Johnson's conversation, noted his mannerisms, and in general gave an intimate picture such as no biography had ever before dared to attempt. After Boswell, there was a retreat from his bolder innovations, which amounted to self-censorship on the biographer's part. When Thomas Carlyle's biographer, James Anthony Froude, braved this trend against truth and allowed his subject's dark side to show, he was vilified in the press. The tensions between discretion and candor have endured in British biography since Froude, a point Carl Rollyson makes in the reviews of contemporary British biographers he includes in British Biography, which also contains Johnson's full-length biography of Richard Savage, excerpts from Boswell's Life of Johnson as well selections from and commentaries on Southey's biography of Nelson, Mrs. Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bront, and the revolutionary work of Froude and Strachey. |
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... mother, defrauded bya mother ofa fortune which his father had allotted him, he entered the world withouta friend; and though his abilities forced themselves into esteem and reputation, hewas never able to obtain any real advantage,and ...
... mother, whom, asshewas now set free from her husband, he probably imagined likely to treat withgreat tenderness the child that had contributed toso pleasing an event. Itis not indeed easyto discover what motivescould be found to ...
... mother, doomed to poverty and obscurity, and launched upon the ocean of life only thathe might be swallowed byits quicksands or dashed upon its rocks. [9] His mother could not indeed infect others with the same cruelty. As itwas ...
... mother, whocould no longer refusean answer, determinedat least to givesuch as shouldcut him off for everfrom that happiness which competence affords, and therefore declared that hewas dead; which is perhaps the first instance ofa ...
... mother to deprive her son of a provision which was designed him by another, and which she could not expect herself, though he should lose it. [15] Thiswas therefore an act ofwickedness which could notbe defeated, because it could notbe ...
Contents
READINGS THE RAMBLER NO 60 JOHNSONS LIFE OF SAVAGE 1744 | |
EXCEPT FROM ROBERT SOUTHEYS LIFE OF NELSON | |
EXCERPTS FROM ELIZABETH GASKELLS LIFEOF | |
EXCERPT FROM FROUDES LIFE OF CARLYLE | |
LYTTON STRACHEY EMINENT VICTORIANS 1918 | |
REVIEWS | |
JOHN FOWLES | |