"I am not writing history but biography, and the most outstanding exploits do not always have the property of revealing the goodness or badness of the agent; often, in fact, a casual action, the odd phrase, or a jest reveals character better than the battles...I must be allowed to devote more time to those aspects which indicate a person's mind and to use these to portray the life of each of my subjects, while leaving their major exploits and battles to others."
— Plutarch, Life of Alexander
A biography is a (supposedly) factual accounting of the life of a real person. If written by the person it is about, it's called an autobiography. An autobiography in which the author focuses on his or her role in society is also called a memoir.
Biographies date back to the invention of the written word, making this Older Than Dirt. The word is derived from the classical Greek root words auto (self or "without external prompting"), bio (life) and graphy (to write about).
The biopic is one of these in movie form.
Biographies:
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Comics
- American Splendor is an Autobiographical comics about mundane life events of Cleveland file clerk Harvey Pekar.
- The Arab Of The Future, by Riad Sattouf, is about his life growing up in Libya and Syria, being raised by a Syrian father and a French mother.
- Blankets is an autobiography about the artist's childhood and their first love.
- Darwin: An Exceptional Voyage: A biography about Charles Darwin, written as if Darwin himself is speaking it.
- DC Pride 2022: "Finding Batman" is an autobiography written by Kevin Conroy.
- Gender Queer: A Memoir is an autobiographical Coming of Age Story revolving around the artist's gender identity.
- Maus is a dual biography, of the author and his father, a Holocaust survivor.
Fan Works
- The Bolt Chronicles: In "The Autobiography," Bolt attempts to memorialize his life story in response to the many unflattering fanfics written about him. When he tries to talk it into the computer using a speech program, it comes out as barking.
Literature
- Always With Honor is the autobiography of General Pyotr Wrangel, leader of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. The book chronicles his rise from cavalry officer, to general, to Supreme Commander of the White forces.
- The Parallel Lives of Plutarch is generally considered to be the Ur-Example of the biography as we understand it, as it focuses not on grand historical events but on the smaller ones that cast light on the subjects' personalities.
- Confessions is the first known auto-biography and details the events from Augustine's birth (he had to extrapolate what that was like from other infants) to his ultimate conversion to Christianity in his mid-thirties.
- Many Roman and Chinese emperors left behind biographies of their lives, which are invaluable to historians.
- Related to this, Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, while primarily a history of China, devotes substantial space to biographies of the emperors and nobles.
- The Vita Nuova is largely a prose account by Dante Alighieri explaining the historical circumstances behind the love poetry included in the collection.
- Jennette McCurdy published I'm Glad My Mom Died about her (real) experiences as a child star with a Stage Mom.
- Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder is a fictionalized autobiography.
- Martha Jane Cannary-Burke, aka Calamity Jane, wrote an autobiography of her life which has been confirmed to be mostly true.
- Parson Weems' biography of George Washington is infamous for having just plain made up certain incidents to make Washington look even more morally upright.
- The Life of Samuel Johnson, written by James Boswell, is considered the greatest biography in the English language.
- By the same token, Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography is generally considered to be one of the best autobiographies ever written in English—or any other language, for that matter.
- Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory. Nabokov wanted to name it Speak, Mnemosyne (Mnemosyne being the Greek Titaness who symbolized memory), but his publisher suggested otherwise, fearing that readers wouldn't buy a book whose title they could not pronounce.
- Night is the autobiography of sixteen-year-old Elie Wiesel going through concentration camps in the Holocaust.
- Gertrude Stein subverted the genre by writing The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and Everybody's Autobiography.
- The Game (2005) Is a self help book and the story of Neil Strauss' ascent to Pickup Artist all in one package.
- My Feuds and Actions, the autobiography of 16th century German knight and mercenary Götz von Berlichingen.
- Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), famous Italian goldsmith, sculptor and painter, wrote an autobiography (simply title Vita, "Life", by him), in which he, among other things, describes three murders he committed.
- The Disaster Artist is a biography by the actor Greg Sestero, recalling his experiences on set in the notoriously terrible movie The Room.
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is one of the most famous autobiographical books, telling about Maya Angelou's childhood.
- On the Life and Character of Julius Agricola is a biography of Julius Agricola, a Roman Governor of Britain and a General during the Year of Four Emperors.
- Wet Goddess is an autobiography of Zachary Zimmermannote , documenting his romantic relationship with a bottlenose dolphin Ruby.
- Imperial German soldier Ernst Jünger's seminal World War I memoir Storm of Steel, which details what life in the trenches was like for the average grunt.
- Martin H. Greenberg had such a focus on where the next book was coming from, the only record he made of his life was in the form of a bibliography, I Have an Idea for a Book.... It includes the various books/anthologies he had edited and assembled with the help of skilled authors.
- Isaac Asimov:
- Opus 100: The first autobiography published by Dr Asimov, this book focuses on his journey as a writer; his earliest attempts at storytelling, to his first few novels, to his most recent efforts as both a Science Fiction writer, and a writer of science fact. This novel takes its name from being the one hundredth book he published.
- The Early Asimov: This Anthology is an autobiographical account of Dr Asimov's first eleven years of professional publication. It's the second biographical account he wrote, and he focused on his interactions with the great editor John W. Campbell.
- Where Am I Now? True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame - an autobiography by Former Child Star Mara Wilson.
- Sherlock Holmes is essentially a biography of a fictional charater, written by Watson. Holmes even refers to him as his Boswell or his biographer.
- The junkie memoir Heroin Story by David Poses count as autobiography.
- Stone Butch Blues is semi-autobiographical. It uses a fictional protagonist but has elements of the writer's life intertwined.
- Imagine That!: How Dr. Seuss Wrote The Cat In The Hat is a book about how Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat.
- Ozzy Osbourne's memoir I Am Ozzy chronicles his storied career as a heavy metal vocalist, sprinkled with humorous anecdotes prior to, during and after his career in Black Sabbath.
Live-Action TV
- A&E has a popular and long-running series called Biography, which has even spawned its own channel (The Biography Network).
- The History Channel aired Hatfields & McCoys, a three part miniseries about the Hatfield-McCoy feud. It was fairly true to history, although it took some artistic license to make the story flow better.
Music
- Subverted by Savatage's Streets: A Rock Opera. The story of DT Jesus and his struggle with drugs and fame bares a suspicious resemblance to lead singer Jon Oliva's life. It isn't supposed to be his story at all, Streets released in 1991 and the original story it was adapted from, Gutter Ballet, being written in 1979 by their producer, Paul O'Neill, before his involvement with the band.
Professional Wrestling
- Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks. The first autobiography of Professional Wrestler Mick Foley, written entirely by Mick himself in longhand.
Theater
- Significant biographical musicals include:
- The Sound of Music, about the Trapp Family
- Fiorello!, about New York City's Depression era mayor, Fiorello La Guardia (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama)
- The Sound of Music and Fiorello! also shared the Tony Award for Best Musical of 1959, to date the only plays to tie in any of the Tonys' four production categories.
- Annie Get Your Gun, about Annie Oakley
- Grey Gardens, about Jackie Kennedy's aunt, Edith Ewing "Big Edie" Bouvier Beale, and Jackie's cousin, Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale
- Gypsy, about Rose Havoc, the ultimate stage mother, and her daughters "Baby" June and Louise, aka Gypsy Rose Lee
- The Boy From Oz, about Australian singer/songwriter Peter Allen
- Evita, about the charismatic wife of Argentine dictator Juan Perón
- Funny Girl, about Fanny Brice, a comedienne in the Ziegfeld Follies and on radio
- Jersey Boys, about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
- Keating!, a light-hearted one about Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating.
- Significant biographical stage plays (non-musical) include:
- Amadeus, about the relationship between composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri
- M. Butterfly, about a French diplomat stationed in communist China who carries on a long-term affair with an opera singer — whom (he claimed) he didn't know was really a man and not a woman
- Caesar and Cleopatra, by George Bernard Shaw
- Saint Joan, also by George Bernard Shaw, about Joan of Arc.
- The Lion in Winter, about England's King Henry II, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their scheming sons Richard the Lionheart, Prince John and Prince Geoffrey
- Shakespeare's biographical plays include:
- English monarchy:
- The Life and Death of King John
- Richard II
- Henry IV (parts 1 and 2)
- Henry V
- Henry VI (parts 1, 2, and 3)
- Richard III
- Henry VIII
- Roman Empire:
- English monarchy:
TV Tropes
- Our own pages on actors, creators, and companies can often be considered mini-biographies. See the Creators index for a complete listing.
