Collection
Lives & Memoirs
Biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and saints' lives from Plutarch to the twentieth century, linked to the texts and guides in the library.
See also Heroes & Villains, Plutarch.
Public-domain works carry the full text in the library reader. Copyrighted modern biographies and memoirs have an abstract and study guide only.
Ancient and Medieval Lives
Greek and Roman biographers wrote lives to show character in action; medieval writers kept the memory of kings, crusades and the conversion of peoples.
Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans · c. AD 100-120
Paired lives of Greek and Roman statesmen and soldiers, written to show how character shapes public life.
The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives · c. 100 CE
Nine of Plutarch's Greek lives, from Agesilaus to Alexander the Great.
The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives · c. 100 CE
Six of Plutarch's Roman lives, from Marius to Cicero, telling the end of the Republic through its leading men.
The Twelve Caesars · c. 121 CE
Suetonius's lives of Julius Caesar and the first eleven emperors, rich in anecdote and personal detail.
Two Lives of Charlemagne · c. 830 / c. 885
Einhard's portrait of the emperor he served, with Notker's later collection of stories about him.
Ecclesiastical History of the English People · 731
Bede's history of the conversion of the English, full of short lives of kings, monks and bishops such as Aidan, Cuthbert and the poet Caedmon.
Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople · c. 1207-1213
A leader of the Fourth Crusade tells how the expedition, bound by its debt to Venice, turned toward Constantinople and took the city in 1204.
The Trial of Joan of Arc · 1431; rehabilitation 1450-1456; Murray translation 1902
The records of Joan of Arc's trial and later rehabilitation, preserving her own answers to her judges.
Saints and Spiritual Autobiography
Lives of holy men and women, and the inward stories believers wrote of their own conversion and prayer.
Confessions · c. 397–400 CE
Augustine's account of his restless youth and conversion, addressed to God as a long prayer.
Early Christian Lives · c. 356–420 CE
Early lives of desert fathers and saints, including Athanasius's Life of Antony and Jerome's lives of the hermits.
Life of St. Martin · c. 397; Roberts translation 1894
Sulpicius Severus's life of the soldier who became bishop of Tours, written by a man who knew him.
St. Patrick's Writings · 5th century; later legends 7th century
Patrick's own Confession and Letter, with the early lives written in Ireland after him.
Early Franciscan Sources · c. 1209-1390
The first lives and stories of Francis of Assisi and his brothers.
The Golden Legend: Popular Saints · c. 1260 (Caxton translation 1483; Ellis edition 1900)
Jacobus de Voragine's much-read collection of saints' lives, in Caxton's English.
St. Thomas Becket and the Canterbury Miracles · 1170-1173; miracle collections late 12th century
Eyewitness accounts of Becket's murder in Canterbury Cathedral and the miracle stories gathered at his shrine.
The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus · 1565
Teresa of Avila's own account of her life and prayer, written at the request of her confessors.
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners · 1666
John Bunyan's story of his years of spiritual struggle, his conversion and his imprisonment for preaching.
The Practice of the Presence of God · 1692
Conversations with, and letters by, a Carmelite lay brother who learned to pray while working in the monastery kitchen.
The Journal of John Woolman · 1774
A Quaker tailor's journal of his travels among the colonies and his quiet persuasion of Friends to give up slaveholding.
Apologia Pro Vita Sua · 1864
John Henry Newman's history of his religious opinions, from the Oxford Movement to his reception into the Catholic Church in 1845.
The Story of a Soul · 1898
Therese of Lisieux's memoir of her childhood and her years in the Carmel, where she described her 'little way'.
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life · 1955
C. S. Lewis's account of his early life and his path from atheism to Christian faith.
Through Gates of Splendor · 1957
Elisabeth Elliot's account of the five missionaries killed in Ecuador in 1956 while trying to reach the Waorani people.
The Hiding Place · 1971
Corrie ten Boom's memoir of hiding Jews in wartime Haarlem and of her imprisonment at Ravensbruck.
Artists, Writers and Thinkers
How painters, poets and men of letters lived and worked, told by themselves or by those who knew them.
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (Volume 1) · 1550; 2nd ed. 1568
Vasari's lives of the Italian painters, sculptors and architects, beginning with Cimabue and Giotto; the founding work of art history.
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini · 1558-1563
The goldsmith and sculptor's lively, boastful story of popes, princes, quarrels and the casting of his bronze Perseus.
The Lives of Richard Hooker, George Herbert and Robert Sanderson · 1665-1678
Izaak Walton's gentle lives of the churchman Richard Hooker, the poet George Herbert and Bishop Robert Sanderson.
The Life of Samuel Johnson · 1791
Boswell's record of Samuel Johnson's talk and character, often called the greatest biography in English.
Confessions · 1782-1789
Rousseau's frank account of his own life and feelings, a model for later autobiography.
The True Story of My Life · 1846
Hans Christian Andersen tells how a poor boy from Odense became a famous writer.
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher · 1864
Charles Babbage's recollections of his calculating engines, his friends and his campaigns.
Ecce Homo · written 1888; published 1908
Nietzsche's late, unusual review of his own life and books.
American Lives
Founders, pioneers, builders and reformers, from colonial New England to the twentieth century.
The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson · 1682
A minister's wife describes her eleven weeks as a captive during King Philip's War (1675-1676) and reads her ordeal through Scripture.
Autobiography and Poor Richard's Almanack · 1732-1790
Franklin's account of his rise from printer's apprentice, with the sayings of Poor Richard.
John Adams · 2001
David McCullough's biography of John Adams and his partnership with Abigail.
Washington: A Life · 2010
Ron Chernow's full-length biography of George Washington.
Life on the Mississippi · 1883
Mark Twain's memoir of learning to pilot steamboats on the Mississippi, with his return to the river years later.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie · 1920
Carnegie's story of his journey from bobbin boy to steel maker and giver of libraries.
The Story of My Life · 1903
Helen Keller describes her childhood, her teacher Anne Sullivan and her education through Radcliffe.
Twenty Years at Hull-House · 1910
Jane Addams describes founding a settlement house among Chicago's immigrant neighborhoods.
Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography · 1913
Theodore Roosevelt recounts his boyhood, ranching, police work, the Rough Riders and the presidency.
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth · 1913
John Muir remembers his Scottish childhood, his family's Wisconsin farm and his first years at university.
Little Britches · 1950
Ralph Moody's memoir of a boyhood on a Colorado ranch.
Slavery and Freedom
Narratives written by men and women who were enslaved, and lives of those who won freedom.
Narrative of the Life and What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? · 1845 / 1852
Frederick Douglass's own narrative of slavery and escape, with his 1852 Fourth of July address.
12 Years a Slave · 1853
Solomon Northup, a free man from New York, tells of being kidnapped and held in slavery in Louisiana.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl · 1861
Harriet Jacobs's narrative, written as 'Linda Brent', of slavery in North Carolina, years in hiding and escape to the North.
Up from Slavery · 1901 (serialized 1900-01)
Booker T. Washington tells of his boyhood in slavery and his work building Tuskegee Institute.
Amos Fortune, Free Man · 1950
Elizabeth Yates's life of an African-born man who bought his freedom in colonial New England.
Long Walk to Freedom · 1994
Nelson Mandela's autobiography, from village boyhood to prison and the presidency of South Africa.
War and Service
Soldiers, nurses and prisoners tell what war asked of them.
Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands · 1857
Mary Seacole describes her travels and nursing, from Panama to her 'British Hotel' near the front in the Crimean War.
Personal Memoirs · 1885-1886
Ulysses S. Grant's clear account of his life and Civil War campaigns, finished just before his death.
Memoirs · 1875
William Tecumseh Sherman's memoir of his campaigns, including the march through Georgia.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom · 1926
T. E. Lawrence's account of the Arab Revolt in the First World War.
Testament of Youth · 1933
Vera Brittain's memoir of her generation, her nursing service and the losses of the First World War.
Man's Search for Meaning · 1946 (German, as Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager); English trans. Ilse Lasch 1959; enlarged 1962
Viktor Frankl's account of the concentration camps and the search for meaning that sustained some prisoners.
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy · 2010
Eric Metaxas's biography of the pastor who resisted the Nazi regime and was executed in April 1945.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption · 2010
Laura Hillenbrand's biography of Louis Zamperini: Olympic runner, airman, castaway and prisoner of war.