biography Archives - The American Scholar

A Poet of Glamour and Chaos

By Sandra M. Gilbert | 10/12/2017 |

Lady Lazarus rises again

Triumph of the Underdog

By Richard Moe | 10/04/2017 |

A new biography offers a sympathetic portrait of Lincoln’s greatest general

The Doctor’s Discontents

By Mark Edmundson | 09/05/2017 |

A harshly critical new biography of the father of psychotherapy

“Time to Plant Tears”

By Dana Gioia | 03/06/2017 |

An intimate biography of one of the 20th century’s great poets

Darkness Illuminated

By Susan Cheever | 09/06/2016 |

A horror writer whose real demons were off the page

Annals of Human Oddity

By Andy Grundberg | 06/06/2016 |

Casting an eye on “freaks” with sensitivity and compassion

A Model Marriage

By Mary Beth Norton | 12/07/2015 |

An intimate portrait of a couple who helped forge a nation

Hail to the Chiefs

By Michael Sherry | 12/07/2015 |

Leaders of the last century

A Prophet Without Honor

By Alex Beam | 06/09/2014 |

There’s no authoritative biography yet for Joseph Smith, the notorious founding figure in Mormonism

Dean of Satire

By George O’Brien | 12/06/2013 |

A writer’s many masks