Biographies have always been controversial. On his deathbed, the novelist Henry James told his nephew that his “sole wish” was to “frustrate as utterly as possible the postmortem exploiter” by ...

Literary “It-girls” and their complicated legacies. Candid reflections on lives fractured by devastating injuries. Art world excess. And a deep dive into what it truly means to be a sociopath. This ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. From examinations of tense presidential runs to the politicians unexpectedly ascending to the highest office in the land, these ...

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team. Experiments in biography tend to blow up in the ...

1. It’s barely 30 years old, but this feels like the Great Granddaddy of philosophical biography. The book’s subtitle, “The Duty of Genius,” perfectly captures the subject. If the Austrian-born Ludwig ...

ALTHOUGH I WRITE biographies, as well as mini-biographies week by week in the form of The Economist’s obituaries, I’m not a great reader of them. Too often they leave me dissatisfied, feeling that ...

Despite never having become a British MP, Nigel Farage is one of the most “consequential” politicians of our time, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. More or less single-handedly, he transformed ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Biographies have always been controversial. On his deathbed, the novelist Henry James told his nephew that his “sole wish” was to ...