"In this timely, unusual and exhilarating collection Hermione Lee is concerned in different ways with approaches to 'life-writing': the relation of biography to fiction and history; the exploration of writers' lives in connection with their works; the new and changing ways in which biographies, memoirs, diaries and autobiographies can be discussed." "The subjects range from T. S. Eliot to J. M. Coetzee, from May Sinclair and Rosamond Lehmann to Eudora Welty and Brian Moore. These studies by a leading critic and internationally acclaimed biographer raise profound and intriguing issues about every aspect of writing, and reading, a life."--BOOK JACKET.