Biography
A biography is writing about someoneâs life. If someone is writing about their own life it becomes an autobiography. These forms can also widen out to focus on a specific part of someoneâs life, or their family.
A biography is usually written both to inform and to entertain. This means it is a mix of factual information and creative writing. The audience is usually made up of people who are interested in the person being written about. However, sometimes biographies of people who arenât well known can be interesting because of an experience that theyâve had.
Example
This is the opening paragraph of Claire Tomalinâs biography of Charles Dickens, the novelist. The young man she is describing is Dickens, aged 37.
14 January 1840, London. An inquest is being held at Marylebone Workhouse, a muddled complex of buildings spread over a large area between the Marylebone Road and Paddington Street. The Beadle, a parish officer responsible for persuading householders to do their duty as jurors at such inquests, has assembled twelve men. Most of them are middle-aged local tradesmen, but one stands out among them as different. He is young and slight, smartly dressed and good-looking, neither tall nor short at five foot nine inches, with dark hair falling in curls over his forehead and collar. He is a new resident who has just moved into a fine airy house with a large garden, close to Regentâs Park at York Gate: it is No. 1 Devonshire Terrace, from which the Beadle has made haste to summon him to his duty.
Charles Dickens, Claire Tomalin
Analysis
Tomalin, the writer of this extract:
- uses many literary techniques to create an accurate image of the scene for the reader, âa muddled complex of buildingsâ
- starts in the middle of a story, rather than at the beginning of Dickensâs life, to grab the readerâs attention and highlight a specific event of interest
- focuses on the person that the biography is about
- gives us detail about the person, so we can imagine him âHe is young and slight, smartly dressed and good-lookingâ
- contrasts the person to the âmiddle-aged tradesmenâ to make him seem special by describing him in a romantic way âdark hair falling in curls over his foreheadâ