Biography
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For other uses, see Biography (disambiguation).
For the Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons, see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons.
Third Volume of a 1727 edition of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans printed by Jacob Tonson.
A biography or simply bio is a detailed description or account of a person's life. It entails more than basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death—a biography also portrays a subject's experience of these events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.
Biographical works are usually nonfiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works in diverse media—from literature to film—form the genre known as biography.
An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or a subject's heirs. An autobiography is written by the person themselves, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter.[1]
Contents
1 History
1.1 Historical biography
1.2 Emergence of the genre
1.3 Modern biography
1.4 Recent years
2 Book awards
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links
History
At first, biographical writings were regarded merely as a subsection of history with a focus on a particular individual of historical importance. The independent genre of biography as distinct from general history writing, began to emerge in the 18th century and reached its contemporary form at the turn of the 20th century.[2]
Historical biography
Einhard as scribe
One of the earliest biographers was Plutarch, and his Parallel Lives,...