BIOGRAPHY

While 1955 was no vintage year for biography, there were some good short lives and two or three jobs of major quality. None seemed so anxious to tell all as actresses or their biographers--from Mary Pickford (Sunshine and Shadow) to Ethel Barrymore (Memories) to Katharine Cornell (Me and Kit) to the late Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A. The best work was done by writers who wrote about other writers.

Julius Caesar, by Alfred Duggan, was not based on fresh research, but it had other virtues: brevity, a clean, readable style, and the good sense to see its great subject plain.

Henry Adams, by Elizabeth Stevenson, brought sound sense and a thaw of compassion to one of the finest minds and coolest customers in U.S. intellectual history. Biographer Stevenson also forged a convincing emotional link between Adams' Cassandra-like forebodings and his numb grief over his wife's suicide.

The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, by Dr. Ernest Jones, brought Freud up to 1919 in the second volume of what may well be one of the major biographies of the decade. A psychoanalyst himself, Jones dug deep into the secret places of history's greatest Peeping Tom.

Laurette, by Marguerite Courtney, stood high above all the many books about movie and theater folk. Not only did the tragic story of alcoholic Actress Laurette Taylor have more substance than others, it was also told with greater intelligence and in better writing.

Jefferson Davis, by Hudson Strode, tried to rescue the President of the Confederacy from the sour apple tree from which he has been so long suspended. In the first volume (another to come), Davis seemed to be treated with exaggerated sympathy, but the portrait of a young Southern gentleman came from intimate sources and was long overdue.

The Solitary Singer, by Gay Wilson Allen, gave Poet Walt Whitman his sturdiest monument, a huge, perhaps overstuffed life that probably includes every available scrap of information about Walt.

Lincoln the President, by J. G. Randall, was finished by Richard N. Current after Randall died. Like the first three volumes, it was no reading delight, but it capped the only major life of Lincoln by an academic historian, one who was more interested in realism than in mythmaking.

Hogarth's Progress, by Peter Quennell, provided a guided tour of 18th century London, together with a biography of that city's great "phizmonger," William Hogarth. A lusty, busty period and the fine artist who did most to celebrate it got something like their due.

Passionate Pilgrim, by Lawrence and Elisabeth Hanson, was a scrupulously honest and sympathetic biography of Vincent van Gogh.

The Life of Rudyard Kipling, by C. E. Carrington, went a long way toward explaining the mind, the character (and so the work) of the great British writer who was not afraid to celebrate character, whether in his countrymen or in his country.

The Intelligent Heart, by Harry T. Moore, was certainly the best single introduction to the life of Novelist D. H. Lawrence. He aroused great critical passions and great personal response (he almost drove so sane a fellow as Bertrand Russell to suicide), but Biographer Moore steered a steady course through the tortured life of one of the 20th century's most disturbing writers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.