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Biographer)
Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography.
Biographers
Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome, Au=Austria, AH=Austria/Hungary, Ca=Canada, En=England, Fl=Finland, Fr=France, Ge=Germany, Id=Indonesia, In=India, Ir=Ireland, Is=Israel, Jp=Japan, Nw=Norway, SA=South Africa, Sc=Scotland, SL=Sierra Leone, So=Somalia, Sp=Spain, Sw=Sweden, TT=Trinidad & Tobago, US=United States, Ve=Venezuela, Wl=Wales
A–G
- Hermann Abert (Ge, 1871–1927) – Robert Schumann, Niccolò Jommelli, W. A. Mozart
- Alfred Ainger (En, 1837–1904) – Charles Lamb
- Ellis Amburn (US, 1933–2018) – Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Jack Kerouac, Elizabeth Taylor, Warren Beatty and Janis Joplin
- Rudolph Angermüller (Ge, 1940–2021) – Antonio Salieri, W. A. Mozart
- Núria Añó (Sp. born 1973) – Salka Viertel
- Marie Célestine Amélie d'Armaillé (1830–1918) – Catherine de Bourbon, Élisabeth of France, Marie Leszczyńska, Marie Antoinette, Marie-Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême, Septimanie d'Egmont), Désirée Clary
- Rosemary Ashton (Sc/En, born 1947) – George Eliot
- Deborah Baker (US, living) – Allen Ginsberg and Laura Riding
- Elizabeth Biddulph, Baroness Biddulph (En, 1834–1916) – Charles Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke
- Jennie M. Bingham (US, 1859–1933) — Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Charlotte Brontë, Margaret Fuller, Charles Lamb, Briton Rivière
- Lucie Boissonnas (1839–1877) – Robert E. Lee
- James Boswell (Sc, 1740–1795) – Samuel Johnson
- Paula Broadwell (US, born 1972) – David Petraeus
- Max Brod (AH/Is, 1884–1968) – Franz Kafka
- Leslie Brody (US, born 1952) – Jessica Mitford
- Vincent Brome (En, 1910–2004) – various writers
- Egerton Brydges (En, 1762–1837) – English writers
- Andrea Cagan (US, living) – Diana Ross
- Thomas Carlyle (Sc, 1795–1881) – John Sterling and Frederick the Great
- Robert A. Caro (US, born 1935) – Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson
- Humphrey Carpenter (En, 1946–2005) – J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden, Ezra Pound, Evelyn Waugh, Benjamin Britten Robert Runcie and Spike Milligan
- Virginia Spencer Carr (US, 1929–2012) – Carson McCullers, Paul Bowles and John Dos Passos
- Charles Castle (En, 1939–2013) – Noël Coward, Joan Crawford, Oliver Messel, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, La Belle Otero, Richard Tauber
- George Cavendish (En, 1494 – c. 1562) – Thomas Wolsey
- Nirad C. Chaudhuri (In, 1897–1999) – Clive of India and Max Müller
- Ron Chernow (US, born 1949)
- Na Chokkan (In, born 1977) – Sachin Tendulkar, Dhirubhai Ambani, Charlie Chaplin, Rahul Dravid, Azim Premji, Lakshmi Mittal, Walt Disney etc. in Tamil
- Vincent Cronin (En, 1924–2011) – Napoleon, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and Catherine the Great
- Douglas Day (US, 1932–2004) – Malcolm Lowry
- Thomas DiLorenzo (US, born 1954) – Abraham Lincoln
- Damon DiMarco (US, born 1971) – Roy Simmons
- Richard Ellmann (US, 1918–1987) – James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and W. B. Yeats
- Alberthiene Endah (Id, living) – Chrisye, Krisdayanti and Raam Punjabi
- Ivar Eskeland (Nw, 1927–2005) – decorated with the Order of the Falcon and winner of the Bastian Prize for his biographies of Gisle Straume and Snorri Sturluson
- Wayne Federman (US, born 1959) – Pete Maravich
- Elaine Feinstein (En, 1930–2019) – Marina Tsvetaeva, Pushkin, Ted Hughes
- Mary Fels (US, 1863–1953) – Joseph Fels
- Kitty Ferguson (US, born 1941) – Stephen Hawking
- William Fitzstephen (En, died 1190) – Thomas Becket
- Amanda Foreman (En/US, born 1968) – Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
- Esther G. Frame (US, 1840–1920) – Esther G. Frame
- Antonia Fraser (En, born 1932) – Mary, Queen of Scots and Oliver Cromwell
- Russell Freedman (US, 1929–2018) – Abraham Lincoln
- Douglas Southall Freeman (US, 1886–1953) – Robert E. Lee and George Washington
- Leonie Frieda (Sw/En, born 1956) – Catherine de' Medici
- Jean Overton Fuller (En, 1915–2009) – Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Algernon Charles Swinburne and Sir Francis Bacon
- Elizabeth Gaskell (En, 1810–1865) – Charlotte Brontë
- Peter Gay (US, 1923–2015) – Sigmund Freud and W. A. Mozart
- Gary Giddins (US, born 1948) – Bing Crosby, Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong
- Martin Gilbert (En, 1936–2015) Winston Churchill
- Annie Somers Gilchrist (US, 1841–1912)
- Josef Greiner (Au, c. 1886–1947) – Adolf Hitler
- Adrian Greenwood (En, 1973–2016) – Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde
- Peter Guralnick (US, born 1943) – Elvis Presley and Sam Phillips
- Gamal Abdul Nasir Zakaria (ID, born 1965) – Mohammad Natsir
H–M
- Seppo Heikinheimo (Fl, 1938–1997) – Aarre Merikanto, Oskar Merikanto and Martti Talvela
- Charles Higham (England/US, 1931–2012) – Errol Flynn, Howard Hughes and Katharine Hepburn
- Thomas Jefferson Hogg (En, 1792–1862) – Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Richard Holmes (England, born 1945) – Mary Shelley, Coleridge, The Age of Wonder
- Michael Holroyd (En, born 1935) – Lytton Strachey
- Imogen Holst (En, 1907–1984) – Gustav Holst
- Marilla Baker Ingalls (US, 1828–1902) – Mah Po
- Walter Isaacson (US, born 1952) – Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs and Henry Kissinger
- Edward Jablonski (US, 1922–2004) – George Gershwin and Irving Berlin
- Elizabeth Jenkins (En, 1905–2010) – Jane Austen, Henry Fielding, Lady Caroline Lamb Joseph Lister and Elizabeth I
- Samuel Johnson (En, 1709–1784) – Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets
- Ernest Jones (Wl, 1879–1958) – Sigmund Freud
- Kathleen Jones (EnAl, born 1946) – Katherine Mansfield
- Landon Jones (US, living) – William Clark
- Alicia Jurado (Arg, 1922-2011) – William Henry Hudson, Cunninghame Graham, Jorge Luis Borges
- Shakuntala Karandikar (In, 1931–2018) – Chandrashekhar Agashe
- Kitty Kelley (US, born 1942) – Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor and Nancy Reagan
- Jacqueline Kent (Al, born 1947) – Kenneth Cook, Beatrice Davis, Julia Gillard and Hephzibah Menuhin
- Harriette A. Keyser (US, 1841–1936) — Henry C. Potter
- Jennie Ellis Keysor (US, 1860–1945) - Raphael
- Marvin Kitman (US, 1929–2023) – George Washington and Bill O'Reilly
- Edward Klein (US, born 1937) – Hillary Clinton
- Randy Kryn (US, born 1949) — James Bevel
- Robert Lacey (En, born 1944) – Elizabeth II, Princess Grace, Henry VIII, Henry Ford and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
- Jane Lane (En, 1905–1978) – Titus Oates
- Hermione Lee (En, born 1948) – Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf
- Sidney Lee (En, 1856–1926) – Dictionary of National Biography, William Shakespeare and Queen Victoria
- J. Michael Lennon (US, born 1942) – Norman Mailer
- Santeri Levas (Fl, 1899–1987) – Clara & Robert Schumann, Jean Sibelius
- Barbara Levick (En, born 1932) – specialising in Roman emperors
- Gail Levin (US, born 1948) – Edward Hopper, Judy Chicago and Lee Krasner
- Roger Lewis (Wl, born 1960) – Anthony Burgess
- Martha D. Lincoln (US, 1838–1911) — John Wesley Powell
- Kenneth S. Lynn (US, 1923–2001) – Mark Twain, Charlie Chaplin and Ernest Hemingway
- Brenda Maddox (US/E, 1932–2019) – Elizabeth Taylor, D. H. Lawrence, Nora Joyce, W. B. Yeats and Rosalind Franklin
- Norman Mailer (US, 1923–2007) – Marilyn Monroe, Lee Harvey Oswald and Gary Gilmore
- Koryun (Am, 5th century) – Mesrop Mashtots
- William Manchester (US, 1922–2004) – Winston Churchill, Douglas MacArthur and John F. Kennedy
- Cristina Marcano (Ve, born 1960) – Hugo Chávez
- Bruce Marshall (Sc, 1899–1987) – Wing Commander F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas
- John Matteson (US, born 1961) – Amos Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott and Margaret Fuller
- André Maurois (Fr, 1885–1967) – Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Benjamin Disraeli, Victor Hugo, Balzac and Sir Alexander Fleming
- David McCullough (US, 1933–2022) – Harry S. Truman, John Adams and Theodore Roosevelt
- Merle Miller (US, 1919–1986) – Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson
- James McGrath Morris (US, born 1954) – Joseph Pulitzer, Charles Chapin, Ethel Payne, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos
- Miyoshi Kiyotsura (Jp, 847–918) – Japanese scholar-statesman
- Ibn al-Qaisarani (Ab, 1056–1113) – medieval Arab biographer of previous medieval biographers
- Simon Sebag Montefiore (En, born 1965) – Grigory Potemkin and Joseph Stalin
- Thomas Moore (Ir, 1779–1852) – Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Byron and Lord Edward FitzGerald
- Jeffrey Morgan (Ca, living) – Alice Cooper and The Stooges
- Ted Morgan (US, born 1932) – William S. Burroughs, W. Somerset Maugham and Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Andrew Morton (En, born 1953) – Princess Diana, Monica Lewinsky and Tom Cruise
N–Z
- Ira Nadel (Ca, born 1943) – Leon Uris, David Mamet, Tom Stoppard and Leonard Cohen
- Alanna Nash (US, born 1950)
- Nakane Kōtei (Jp, 1839–1913)
- Philip Nel (US, born 1969) – Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss
- Cornelius Nepos (AR, 100–24 BC)
- Nizamuddin Asir Adrawi (IN, 1926–2021)
- Iris Origo (En, 1902–1988)
- James Parton (US, 1822–1891) – Horace Greeley, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Voltaire
- Hesketh Pearson (En, 1887–1964)
- F. David Peat (En, 1928–2017) – David Bohm
- Plutarch (AG, 46–127)
- H. F. M. Prescott (En, 1896–1972) – Mary I of England ("Bloody Mary")
- Arnold Rampersad (TT, born 1941) – Langston Hughes
- Piers Paul Read (En, born 1941) – Alec Guinness
- James Redpath (US, born En, 1833–1891) – John Brown (abolitionist)
- E. J. Richmond (US, 1825–1918) – Harriet Hosmer
- W. Andrew Robinson (En, born 1957) – Satyajit Ray and Rabindranath Tagore
- Romain Rolland (Fr, 1866–1944) – Beethoven, Michelangelo, Leo Tolstoy and Gandhi
- Henry Salt (En, 1851–1939) – Shelley, Richard Jefferies and Henry David Thoreau
- Carl Sandburg (US, 1878–1967) – Abraham Lincoln
- Stacy Schiff (US, born 1961) – United States; Véra Nabokov, Benjamin Franklin, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Cleopatra and the Witches of Salem
- Anton Schindler (Ge, 1795–1864) – Ludwig van Beethoven
- Anne Sebba (En, born 1951) – Wallis Simpson
- Lee Server (US, living) – Robert Mitchum and Ava Gardner
- Miranda Seymour (En, born 1948) – Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace, Hellé Nice, Mary Shelley
- Kirit Shelat (In, born 1946) – India
- Dawn Langley Simmons (En, 1937–2000) – Princess Margaret, Margaret Rutherford and Jacqueline Kennedy
- Roy S. Simmonds (En, 1925–2000) – John Steinbeck, William March and Edward O'Brien
- Jean Edward Smith (US, 1932–2019) – Ulysses S. Grant, John Marshall and Lucius D. Clay
- Laura J. Snyder (US, born 1964) – Charles Babbage, John F.W. Herschel, William Whewell, Richard Jones, Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Oliver Sacks
- Dava Sobel (US, born 1947) – John Harrison, Sister Maria Celeste, daughter of Galileo, Galileo
- Maynard Solomon (US, 1930–2020) – Beethoven, W. A. Mozart
- Leslie Stephen (En, 1832–1904) – Dictionary of National Biography, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift George Eliot and Thomas Hobbes
- Jane Agnes Stewart (US, 1860–1944) — Frances Willard
- Irving Stone (US, 1903–1989)
- Lytton Strachey (En, 1880–1932) – eminent Victorians
- Marshall Terrill (US, born 1963) – Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Billy Graham, Pete Maravich
- Bankole Timothy (SL, 1923–1994), Kwame Nkrumah
- Nick Tosches (US, 1949–2019) – Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin and Sonny Liston
- Meriol Trevor (En, 1919–2000) – John Henry Newman, Philip Neri, Pope John XXIII, Thomas Arnold and James II of England
- Henri Troyat (Fr, 1911–2007) – Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Gogol, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, Maxim Gorky and Rasputin
- Jenny Uglow (En, born 1947) – Elizabeth Gaskell, William Hogarth, Thomas Bewick and the Lunar Society
- Rosa Kershaw Walker (US, 1840s–1909) – eminent Americans
- Blanche Warre-Cornish (En, 1848–1922) – William Thackeray
- Alison Weir (En, born 1937) – Elizabeth I of England, Eleanor of Aquitane, Mary, Queen of Scots
- Sam Weller (US) – Ray Bradbury
- Theodore White (US, 1915–1986) – Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon
- Alice Willard (US, 1860–1936) – Bertha Baur
- A. N. Wilson (En, born 1950) – Sir Walter Scott, John Milton, Hilaire Belloc, Leo Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, Jesus Iris Murdoch and John Betjeman
- Molly Worthen (US, born 1981) – Charles Hill, American diplomat and Yale professor
- Marguerite Young (US, 1908–1995) – Eugene V. Debs
Autobiographers
- Brianda de Acuña (1576-1630), Virtudes de la V. M. Teresa de Iesus, Carmelita Descalza del convento de Valladolid, en el siglo Doña Brianda de Acuña Vela
- Henry Brooks Adams (US, 1838–1918) – The Education of Henry Adams
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali (So, born 1969) – Infidel: My Life
- Nirad C. Chaudhuri (In, 1897–1999) – The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
- Henry Cockburn (Sc, 1779–1854) – Memorials of His Time
- Frederick Douglass (US, c. 1817–February 20, 1895) – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), " The Heroic Slave" in Autographs for Freedom (1853), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892)
- Jens Jacob Eschels (Ge, 1757–1842) – first seafarer's autobiography in German
- Benjamin Franklin (US, 1706–1790) – The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
- Mahatma Gandhi (In, 1869–1948) – The Story of My Experiments with Truth
- Lee Iacocca (US, 1924–2019) – Iacocca: An Autobiography
- Nelson Mandela (SA, 1918–2013) – Long Walk to Freedom
- Frank McCourt (Ir/US, 1930–2009) – Angela's Ashes (Pulitzer Prize)
- Ronald Skirth (En, 1897–1977) – The Reluctant Tommy
