Biographies are a surprisingly controversial endeavour due to their posthumous nature.
While the family’s estate controls the intellectual property of their loved ones after their passing, it’s not exactly possible to get express permission from the likes of George Washington or The Brontë Sisters before conducting a deep dive into their personal lives.
Vastly different to autobiographies, whereby the author seeks to recollect their own personal history, biographies are written by a third party who, through years of academic study, has become a veritable expert in the field.
Thomas Hardy had his second wife, Florence, write his biography before anyone else could. Any remnants of Hardy’s journals and personal notes which hadn’t been destroyed, Florence promptly burned following his death. Poet and author Phillip Larkin followed suit and had his diaries destroyed by a shredder. Sylvia Plath’s diary was burned by Ted Hughes.
Henry James famously deplored the concept of biographers. He destroyed all personal documents to “frustrate as utterly as possible the post-mortem exploiter,” according to Blake Morrison.
Biographies are often deemed by fiction lovers to be tired and obtrusively factual, but it was Lin-Manuel Miranda’s casual picking-up of a copy of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow which led him to create the award-winning, zeitgeist-shifting musical Hamilton between 2008 and 2015.
More recently, Christopher Nolan’s record-breaking Oppenheimer was based on the biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin which was published back in 2005.
While the moral conundrum of biographies endures, the creative and intellectual possibilities are endless. Unauthorised biographies, well, they’re an entirely different kettle of fish.
We’ve curated a selection of the best biographies of all time. Who knows, you might be reading the inspiration behind the next biggest Oscar winner.
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American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
The inspiration behind Nolan’s Oscar-snagging film, American Prometheus delves into the psyche of physicist and polymath J. Robert Oppenheimer in a manner remarkably comparable to a Stephen King novel. The page-turning thriller is a meticulous account of the life and career of the man who invented the atomic bomb. As Christopher Nolan puts it, the 600-page feat is “a riveting account of one of history's most essential and paradoxical figures.”
Buy now £9.09, Amazon
The Dead Are Arising – The Life of Malcom X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Malcolm X biography is considered by many to be the best biography ever written. The Dead Are Arising is the product of an almost thirty-year mission conducted by journalist Les Payne to interview anyone and everyone who knew the historical figure – from family and friends to classmates, cellmates, FBI moles, police and global political leaders.
From his birth in 1925 to his assassination forty years later, Payne was determined to cover it all. This intricately woven and intimate biography was finished by Payne’s daughter and primary research partner, Tamara Payne, following her father’s death in 2018.
Buy now £7.53, Amazon
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
An exploration of the scientific discoveries and artistic feats which defined the end of the 18th century, Richard Holmes writes of how academic disciplines were united under one mutual concept: wonderment. Biographer of both Shelley and Coleridge, Holmes’ The Age of Wonder is an ambitious group biography of the generation’s thinkers and changemakers from Wordsworth to Keats and more.
Buy now £13.25, Amazon
Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann
Think of Ellmann’s celebrated biography as a distinct reanimation of the spirit of Oscar Wilde. Yet another Pulitzer Prize-winning account, the distinguished teacher and critic sails through the controversial and wildly talented life of Wilde with revelatory insights and immense pathos. A writer who turned Victorian society on its head, Ellmann’s biography covers everything from Wilde’s meteoric rise to his eventual imprisonment and death in exile.
Buy now £3.38, Amazon
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius by Ray Monk
It’s incredibly rare to embark on a journey of higher education without coming across the work of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Whether you’re a linguist, historian, mathematician, literary critic or scientist, Wittgensteinianism has permeated the academic world, from his theory of atomic propositions to the philosophy of private language. Ray Monk’s celebrated biography embodies Wittgensteinian philosophy at its heart while crafting an enthralling picture of the influential figure.
Buy now £14.29, Amazon
The Brontë Myth, by Lucasta Miller
In this brilliant biography, Lucasta Miller seeks to dispel the myths which have emerged over the decades regarding Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. Miller weaves in her personal experiences as a writer and journalist in order to reveal the innate paradox at the heart of biography writing, all the while teaching us about the lives of the Brontë sisters. Indeed, it’s no wonder her work has been described as a ‘metabiography’.
Buy now £11.35, Amazon
The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
Considered to be the first biography ever written, The Twelve Caesars is a collection of biographies about Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of Rome. An incredibly significant primary source on Roman history to this day, it was written by the Roman historian Suetonius in AD 121 during the reign of Hadrian.
Buy now £10.11, Amazon
A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
This touching biography by Sylvia Nasar covers the life of mathematician John Nash who, at 31 years old, was diagnosed with Schizophrenia following a devastating breakdown. Celebrated for his fundamental contributions to game theory, real algebraic geometry, differential geometry, and partial differential equations, Nash went on to win a Nobel Prize despite his illness.
Buy now £12.79, Amazon
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. tackles the struggles of the Black Lives Matter movement in the 21st century by drawing insight from the writings of James Baldwin. Despite the horrifying feeling that history continues to repeat, Glaude Jr. delves into the life and career of the ‘poet of the revolution’ to reveal the devastating truth about race in America while calling for justice amidst disillusionment.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Lin-Manuel Miranda famously spoke of how he thought Alexander Hamilton’s rags-to-riches story “out-Dickensed Dickens”. Indeed, Hamilton was an illegitimate self-taught orphan hailing from the Caribbean who somehow found his way to becoming George Washington's aide-de-camp and the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Though this biography is an eye-watering 832 pages, you’ll race through the awe-inspiring life of the soldier, politician, husband and father quicker than any Netflix drama.
Buy now £14.35, Amazon
Barracoon: The Story of the Last Slave by Zora Neale Hurston
Anthropologist and author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston travelled to Alabama in August of 1931 to hear the story of 90-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Over three months, Cudjo told Hurston the story of his enslavement fifty years after slavery was outlawed in America. From his childhood in Africa to his imprisonment in Ouidah barracoons, Hurston delivers this gut-wrenching tale in penetrating detail.
Buy now £9.16, Amazon
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
There’s a reason that Walter Isaacson’s biography of the who changed the landscape of modern technology as we know it is a cut above the rest. It is based on over forty interviews with Steve Jobs himself, which were conducted over just two years. Isaacson also interviewed friends, family, adversaries, colleagues and more to deliver this panoramic view of Jobs’ life and work.
Buy now £11.95, Amazon
