Writing Lives: Principia Biographica

by Leon Edel

“Leon Edel has brilliantly provided for the art of biography a much-needed statement of first principles.” ―Louis Auchincloss The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Henry James presents here a revision of his Literary Biography expanded with six further essays illuminating what he calls the New Biography―an approach that draws on the resources of psychoanalysis, the biographer’s own subjectivity, and the skills of the novelist. Mr. Edel includes a history of the art of biography since Boswell, criticism of some of the best-known biographers, advice for the biographer on documentation and the use of psychological theory, and a discussion of what Edel calls the supreme problem in biography―transference, the life-writer’s emotional involvement with his or her subject.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Writing

272 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1984

About the author

Joseph Leon Edel was a American/Canadian literary critic and biographer. Edel taught English and American literature at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) from 1932 until 1934, New York University from 1953 until 1972, and at University of Hawaii at Manoa from 1972 until 1978. From 1944 to 1952, he worked as a reporter and feature writer for the left-wing New York newspapers PM and the Daily Compass.

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

An illuminating, companionable study of the art of literary biography. Made me really, really want to go read Boswell's Life of Johnson -- as well as the author's definitive 5-volume vita of Henry James.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is difficult to imagine a better book on the subject. I've never read Edel's classic biography of Henry James, but the man who wrote this essay, this man with his poise and tact, this man with his insight into the riddles and complexity of life, this man must be a great biographer, and I'll certainly be searching out his other works.

Edel makes a classic argument about biography: "In biography, selection and design are the needle and thread; and those scholars who see their biography as materials to be set down in rigid chronologies end up not with a garment on their hands but with the bolts of cloth and boxes of buttons." For Edel, biography is an art and a branch of criticism. The biographer takes up the detritus of a finished life—the letters, the laundry lists, the bills, pictures and most of all, the achievements—and fashions them into a whole. The first challenge is thus to imaginatively synthesise the evidence, without losing fidelity to the facts. The second challenge is to cultivate a sympathetic detachment—sympathy enough to understand the dead documents of departed life, and detachment enough to understand them critically.

What is really wonderful about this book is the quality of its prose. It breathes the air of Edel's milieu, the high-minded intellectual culture of postwar New York. It is sane, and elegant, and straightforward. The kind of writing that says: truth is difficult, but communicable. A little anecdote from the end of the book gives a sense of its atmosphere. Edel is describing the moment he finished his monumental 5-volume Life of Henry James: "Suddenly I was a man of leisure. I shaved; I picked a bright holiday necktie. Dressed as for festivities I took a long walk—still a great pleasure in New York after all these years." Here is all the skill of the great biographer himself, the clarity and the eye for the telling detail. This book is richly anecdotal, and always vivid and easy to follow.

The book does have its limitations. Edel's range of reference is small. Almost all the biographies he cites as examples are from the twentieth century. The only real exceptions are Boswell's Life of Johnson and Froude's Carlyle. This is intentional. Edel sets out to describe the New Biography, which he claims Lytton Strachey pioneered. But it does mean that Writing Lives is not a strong as it might be as a general theory of biography. In this respect, more thorough books like Harold Nicholson's Development of English Biography or Paula Backscheider's Reflections on Biography are superior.

But this is a superb essay on the topic, and for what it is, it is not to be beaten.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book, which I bought at a big book sale for our Shelter House here. In this book, Edel describes the difficulties and pleasures of writing biography. He describes the traps some biographers have fallen into--transferring their own psychological problems onto their subjects, thus not seeing them clearly, for example--and provides a bit of a history of the art starting, of course, with Boswell. There's a long and interesting essay about Virginia Woolf's fictional biography, Orlando, and there are shorter essays about his own long relationship with Henry James--interesting tidbits about writing that biography. (Of course I thought about Dad, the only biographer I know, all through the reading of this artful thoughtful book).

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been on a quest to read books to help me along in my own writing journey, and I found Leon Edel from a shorter essay he wrote for another book. I started reading this, and honestly, I found it somewhat esoteric and too theoretical. But later, he got into some more of the issues that a biographer faces, and it began to pick up. His last few chapters on his experiences writing his biography of Henry James made me glad I stuck it out. Edel is probably the leading theorist in biographical writing, but he also has a lot of good information to give.

[Lisa Francesca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ponderous. Patriarchal. Yet there were some lines that called out to be admired. Not sure it's worth the precious real estate on my crowded shelves.

[Janelle V. Dvorak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good reference from a renowned biographer of Henry James.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clear, generally usable ideas for writing biographies.

[Patrik · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of essays on biography written in a very pleasant style.