Autobiography and Autobiographical Fiction
Explore the best autobiography books and autobiographical fiction. Discover true-life stories and novels inspired by real experiences in this curated collection of compelling reads.
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
James Joyce's coming-of-age story, a tour de force of style and technique The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyceâs novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays the Dublin upbringing of Stephen Dedalus, from his youthful days at Clongowes Wood College to his radical questioning of all convention. In doing so, it provides an oblique self-portrait of the young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental in its heroâs quest to create his own character, his own language, life, and art: âto forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.â This Penguin Classics edition is the definitive text, authorized by the Joyce estate and collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions to reflect the authorâs original wishes. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Modern Classics Goodbye To All That
by Robert Graves
An autobiographical work that describes firsthand the great tectonic shifts in English society following the First World War, Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That is a matchless evocation of the Great War's haunting legacy, published in Penguin Modern Classics. In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy, and covers his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. Goodbye to All That, with its vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war document, and also has immense value as one of the most candid self-portraits of an artist ever written. Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985) was a British poet, novelist, and critic. He is best known for the historical novel I, Claudius and the critical study of myth and poetry The White Goddess. His autobiography, Goodbye to All That, was published in 1929, quickly establishing itself as a modern classic. Graves also translated Apuleius, Lucan and Suetonius for the Penguin Classics, and compiled the first modern dictionary of Greek Mythology, The Greek Myths. His translation of The RubĂĄiyĂĄt of Omar KhayyĂĄm (with Omar Ali-Shah) is also published in Penguin Classics. If you enjoyed Goodbye to All That, you might like Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'His wonderful autobiography' Jeremy Paxman, Daily Mail
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Down and Out in Paris and London
by George Orwell
The adventures of a broke British writer as he works as a dishwasher in Paris and stays in homeless shelters in London.
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Long Walk to Freedom with Connections
by Nelson Mandela
Presents Nelson Mandela's autobiography and includes ten writings by other authors, including book excerpts, poems, short stories, and song lyrics, on Mandela, South Africa, or themes like those that shaped his life.
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Fin-De-Siecle Vienna
by Carl E. Schorske
A Pulitzer Prize Winner and landmark book from one of the truly original scholars of our time: a magnificent revelation of turn-of-the-century Vienna where out of a crisis of political and social disintegration so much of modern art and thought was born. "Not only is it a splendid exploration of several aspects of early modernism in their political context; it is an indicator of how the discipline of intellectual history is currently practiced by its most able and ambitious craftsmen. It is also a moving vindication of historical study itself, in the face of modernism's defiant suggestion that history is obsolete." -- David A. Hollinger, History Book Club Review "Each of [the seven separate studies] can be read separately....Yet they are so artfully designed and integrated that one who reads them in order is impressed by the book's wholeness and the momentum of its argument." -- Gordon A. Craig, The New Republic "A profound work...on one of the most important chapters of modern intellectual history" -- H.R. Trevor-Roper, front page, The New York Times Book Review "Invaluable to the social and political historian...as well as to those more concerned with the arts" -- John Willett, The New York Review of Books "A work of original synthesis and scholarship. Engrossing." -- Newsweek
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The World of Yesterday
by Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig (1881â1942) was a poet, novelist, and dramatist, but it was his biographies that expressed his full genius, recreating for his international audience the Elizabethan age, the French Revolution, the great days of voyages and discoveries. In this autobiography he holds the mirror up to his own age, telling the story of a generation that "was loaded down with a burden of fate as was hardly any other in the course of history." Zweig attracted to himself the best minds and loftiest souls of his era: Freud, Yeats, Borgese, Pirandello, Gorky, Ravel, Joyce, Toscanini, Jane Addams, Anatole France, and Romain Rolland are but a few of the friends he writes about.
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin
One of the most popular works of American literature, this charming self-portrait has been translated into nearly every language. It covers Franklin's life up to his prewar stay in London as representative of the Pennsylvania Assembly, including his boyhood years, work as a printer, experiments with electricity, political career, much more.
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley (MAXNotes Literature Guides)
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No summary available.
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The Autobiography of Mark Twain
by Charles Neider
"Mark Twain's autobiography is a classic of American letters, to be ranked with the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Henry Adams.... It has the marks of greatness in it--style, scope, imagination, laughter, tragedy."--From the Introduction by Charles Neider Mark Twain was a figure larger than fife: massive in talent, eruptive in temperament, unpredictable in his actions. He crafted stories of heroism, adventure, tragedy, and comedy that reflected the changing America of the time, and he tells his own story--which includes sixteen pages of photos--with the same flair he brought to his fiction. Writing this autobiography on his deathbed, Twain vowed to he "free and frank and unembarrassed" in the recounting of his life and his experiences. Twain was more than a match for the expanding America of riverboats, gold rushes, and the vast westward movement, which provided the material for his novels and which served to inspire this beloved and uniquely American autobiography.
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The Autobiography of General Ulysses. S. Grant
by Ulysses S. Grant
The American Civil War, as told by General Ulysses S Grant, who led the Union Armies to victory over the Confederacy. Origianl maps illustrate the battles of Shiloh, Vicksburg, The Widlerness, and the surrender at Appomattox. With 14 pages of photos.
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The Confessions of St. Augustine
by Saint Augustine (of Hippo)
"Augustine never thought of God without thinking of his sin, nor of his sin without thinking of Christ." St. Augustine grates hard against "the anatomy of evil" while dealing succinctly and honestly with his own proneness toward sin. From his infatuation with its initial beauty to the discounting of his previously wasted life, Augustine leaves little to the imagination regarding his need to be saved from himself. Most of Augustine's Confessions are spent in a nearly catastrophe tug of war. From insult and injury to passion, lost love, and the arts--this work leads through and beyond a world where God's timing is absolutely perfect. Nothing has really changed since then. Sin is still sin--and God is still God. Moody Classics Of all the factors influencing our spiritual growth and development, pivotal books play a key role. Learning from those who have walked the path and fought the fight brings wisdom and strengthens resolve. And hearing the familiar chords of kingdom living sung by voices from other times can penetrate cultural barriers that limit our allegiance to the King. To this end, Moody Publishers is honored to introduce the first six volumes in what is to be an ongoing series of spiritual classics. Selected for their enduring influence and timeless perspective, these new editions promise to shape the lives of spiritual pilgrims for generations to come.
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An Autobiography
by Mohandas K. Gandhi
Mohandas K. Gandhi is one of the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century. In a new foreword, noted peace expert and teacher Sissela Bok urges us to adopt Gandhi's "attitude of experimenting, of tesing what will and will not bear close scrutiny, what can and cannot be adapted to new circumstances,"in order to bring about change in our own lives and communities. All royalties earned on this book are paid to the Navajivan Trust, founded by Gandhi, for use in carrying on his work.
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Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl
by Marguerite Sechehaye
This is the astonishing memoir of a young woman called only âRenee,â whose descent into schizophrenia began at the age of five. Written with a diamond-sharp precision that lends it an eerie power, it tells the story of Reneeâs long sojourn in what she calls âThe Land of Enlightenment" or âThe Country of Tibetâ and of her gradual and painstaking return to âwonderful reality.â Renee moves in and out of hospitals, sometimes able to eat only tea and spinach, or apples and spinach, because ââThe System forbade anything else.â She regresses to a state resembling infancy, and she experiences intense despair, although she always describes her experiences with a pitiless and remarkable calm, as though she has observed herself from a great distance. And all the while she is sustained by the attention and understanding of her analyst, Marguerite Sechehaye, who has contributed an illuminating Afterword to her story. This harrowing and unforgettable work is a classic in the literature of mental illness. With a foreword by Frank Conroy.
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An Autobiographical Study
by Sigmund Freud
Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey.
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A Sort of Life
by Graham Greene
"Writing A Sort of Life ... was in the nature of a psychoanalysis. I made a long journey through time, and I was one of my characters." Known for his espionage thrillers set in exotic locales, Graham Greene is the writer who launched a thousand travel journalists. But although Greene produced some unabashedly commercial works -- he called them "entertainments," to distinguish them from his novels -- even his escapist fiction is rooted in the gritty realities he encountered around the globe.
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The Autobiography of W. E. B. DuBois
by William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
The African American educator and social activist looks back on his life and work.
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This boy's life
by Tobias Wolff
Wolff's account of his boyhood and the process of growing up includes paper routes, whiskey, scouting, fistfights, friendship, and betrayal in 1950s America.
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Running with Scissors
by Augusten Burroughs
The author describes his bizarre coming-of-age years after his adoption by his mother's psychiatrist, during which he witnessed such misadventures as a fake suicide attempt and front-lawn family/patient sleepovers.
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My Dark Places
by James Ellroy
The internationally acclaimed author of the L.A. Quartet and The Underworld USA Trilogy presents another literary masterpiece, this time a true crime murder mystery about his own mother. In 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb. Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running. He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother--and himself. In My Dark Places, our most uncompromising crime writer tells what happened when he teamed up with a brilliant homicide cop to investigate a murder that everyone else had forgotten--and reclaim the mother he had despised, desired, but never dared to love. What ensues is a epic of loss, fixation, and redemption, a memoir that is also a history of the American way of violence.
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Swallow the Ocean
by Laura M. Flynn
Charismatic, beautiful Sally Flynn was the center of her daughters' imaginations, particularly Laura's. Without warning, life as they knew it changed as paranoid schizophrenia overtook Sally. Whether it was accusing Laura's father of trying to win her over to the side of Satan, or buying only certain products that were evilâfree, glimmers of her mother's future paranoia grew brighter as Laura's early years passed. Once her husband left the family and filed for divorce, Sally's symptoms bloomed in earnest, and the three girls united in flights of fancy of the sort their mother had taught them in order to deflect danger. Set in 1970s San Francisco, Swallow the Ocean is a searing, beautifully written memoir of a childhood under siege and three young girls determined to survive. In luminous prose, this memoir paints a most intimate portrait of what might have been a catastrophic childhood.
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Three Cups of Tea
by Greg Mortenson
The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Talibanâs backyard Anyone who despairs of the individualâs power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistanâs treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schoolsâespecially for girlsâthat offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortensonâs quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.
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The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice
by Catherynne Valente
Catherynne M. Valente enchanted readers with her spellbinding In the Night Garden. Now she continues to weave her storytelling magic in the next book of Orphanâs Talesâan epic of the fantastic and the exotic, the monstrous and mysterious, that will transport you far away from the everyday. . . . Her name and origins are unknown, but the endless tales inked upon this orphanâs eyelids weave a spell over all who listen to her read her secret history. And who can resist the stories she tells? From the Lake of the Dead and the City of Marrow to the artists who remain behind in a ghost city of spice, here are stories of hedgehog warriors and winged skeletons, loyal leopards and sparrow calligraphers. Nothing is too fantastic, anything can happen, but youâll never guess what comes next in these intimately linked adventures of firebirds and djinn, singing manticores, mutilated unicorns, and women made entirely of glass and gears. Graced with the magical illustrations of Michael Kaluta, In the Cities of Coins and Spice is a book of dreams and wonders unlike any youâve ever encountered. Open it anywhere and you will fall under its spell. For here the story never ends and the magic is only beginning. . . .
