Virginia Woolf, who described biography as 'a bastard impure art' © Mary Evans Picture Library

Biography is booming at the moment – especially in the UK. Chain bookstores have large biography sections. Biographies regularly top the non-fiction bestseller lists. All tastes are catered for, from glitzy celeb revelation to arcane scholarship.

Biographers find themselves in an odd role – part historian, part voyeur, part psychologist. Virginia Woolf, who wrote a biography of her friend Roger Fry, called it 'a bastard impure art' and agonised about what to include. Her fellow novelist Rebecca West remarked: 'Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the truth about his or her love affairs.'

West's own biographers may have ruefully had to admit defeat in that area. But they published anyway. And through the centuries, many others have not been deterred ...

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A brief history »
From Plutarch to Lytton Strachey.

The biog boom »
Books pour into the shops about anybody who is anybody - and their second cousins.

Biographers at Hay »
Details of discussions and book launches.