Jane Ridley
Paula Backscheider's Reflections on Biogra- phy (Oxford, £30, paperback £14.99) received little notice when it came out late last year, but don't be put off by the fusty, dark blue OUP livery. This is the book that everyone interested in biography has been waiting for. Written by the American biog- rapher of Defoe, it combines intelligent, dense analysis of biography with impressive depth of reading and practical guidance. It breathes enthusiasm (none of that stuff about the death of biography) and is neither clever-dick theoretical nor flip. There's a fascinating chapter on the `British Professionals', Holroyd and co.
Adam Sisman's Boswell's Presumptuous Task (Hamish Hamilton, £17.99) is required reading. A biography of the writer of the most famous biography ever, it's both a good story and a book that pushes back the frontiers of biography, just as Boswell's life of Johnson did. Not to be missed is Miranda Seymour's Mary Shelley (John Murray, £25), a wonderfully vivid, human and learned portrait of the woman who created Frankenstein, married Shelley and, amazingly, survived.
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