Anti biography

That is what makes it so disturbing to reach the age of anti-biography, with its stories of virtuous, often brilliant obscurity—the lives of people we never heard of because people we’ve definitely heard of merely used them. Insisting on biography’s impossibility, anti-biography rejects the encounter model, refutes the biographer’s claim to mediate between subject and reader, and dissociates life-traces from their supposed referent. Early years First steps Professional growth Public recognition Peak period Later years Public interest Professional activity Media attention
In this crowded field, Campbell frames his fascinating new study as an “anti-biography”, which attempts to unpick, over five main chapters, the mythology surrounding his subject and to reassess.