British Biography: A ReaderBiography 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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... Marriage LYTTON STRACHEY, EMINENT VICTORIANS (1918) Preface Dr.Arnold REVIEWS THE BRONTES ANTHONY BURGESS REGINALD FARRER E. M. FORSTER JOHN FOWLES GRAHAM GREENE CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD LOUIS MACNEICE OLIVIA MANNING JOHNSTUART MILL THE ...
... marriage ofThomas and JaneCarlyle candidly in hislifeof Carlyle, James Anthony Froude initiatedthe modern phase of biography. InKeepers of theFlame,Ian Hamiltoncalls Froude's work the“most heartfelt and compelling of Victorian ...
... marriage as anaffair only cognizable by ecclesiastical judges;and on March 3d was separated from his wife, whose ... married to Colonel Brett. [6] While the Earl of Macclesfield was prosecuting this affair his wife was, onthe 10th of ...
... marriage was delayed. In the mean time he was officiously informed that Mr. Savage hadridiculed him; by which he was so much exasperatedthat hewithdrew the allowance which he had paid him, and never afterwards admitted him to his house ...
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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 | |