Biography: Inventing the Truth

Abstract

It is suggested that biography is essentially, and by its very origins, disreputable. The four problems (ethics, authenticity, celebrity, and empathy) that do not devalue the modern form of biography are outlined. But they make it complicated, provisional, and to some degree perilous. If biography is to have a future, it has to face up to the problems it has inherited. All these seem to express the original, underlying tension found in its genealogy: invention marrying truth. It is remarkable that the shadow or projection of a fictional form would in other hands become Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It is possible for a good biography to tell the truth, and to enlighten and encourage.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 51 citations exist upstream.