Zachary Leader grew up in California but has lived in Britain for over forty years. He was educated at Northwestern University, Trinity College, Cambridge, and Harvard. In addition to teaching at Roehampton, he has taught at Caltech and the University of Chicago. He is the author of Reading Blake's Songs, Writer's Block, Revision and Romantic Authorship, and The Life of Kingsley Amis, a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. The first volume of his two-volume biography of Saul Bellow will be published this May. He has edited three volumes for OUP: On Modern British Fiction, Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Major Works (with Michael O'Neill) and The Movement Reconsidered. Leader is also general editor of the Oxford History of Life-Writing, a projected seven-volume series. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Leader astutely leaves the most radical essay until last: in 'The Unstoried Life', analytic philosopher, Galen Strawson restates his objection to the view of 'narrativists' (as he terms them) that all human life is life-writing, and that life-writing is not only a necessary task for any self-respecting human being, but also, at least in the best case, an exercise of autonomy - self-determination'. His engagingly tendentious piece makes the case for 'non-narratives' - people like him - who do not fundamentally experience life or the self as narrative unities, whether (ostensibly) scripted from without or within. Still, the 'sampling' offered in On Life- Writing makes a nuanced and welcome ... contribution to life-writing studies.

• Introduction ; 1. Unravelling Shakespeare's Life ; 2. A Boy from Stratford: Shakespearean Biography And Romantic Nationalism ; 3. Romantic Biography: Conveying a Sense of Presence, Immediacy and Authenticity ; 4. Prosopography and Crowded Attention in Old and New Media ; 5. Writing Real People ; 6. Rosamund and Ravelstein: The Discandying of a Creator's Confection ; 7. 'From Memory': Literary Encounters and Life-Writing ; 8. Medieval Life-Writing and the Strange Case of Margery Kempe Of Lynn (c.1373-c.1440) ; 9. The Materiality of Early Modern Life-Writing: The Case of Richard Stonley ; 10. The Autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin ; 11. The Worst Thing I Ever Did: The Contemporary Confessional Memoir ; 12. The Rights to a Life ; 13. Human 2.0? Life-Writing In the Digital Age ; 14. Psychoanalysis and Autobiography ; 15. The Unstoried Life

Zachary Leader grew up in California but has lived in Britain for over forty years. He was educated at Northwestern University, Trinity College, Cambridge, and Harvard. In addition to teaching at Roehampton, he has taught at Caltech and the University of Chicago. He is the author of Reading Blake's Songs, Writer's Block, Revision and Romantic Authorship, and The Life of Kingsley Amis, a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. The first volume of his two-volume biography of Saul Bellow will be published this May. He has edited three volumes for OUP: On Modern British Fiction, Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Major Works (with Michael O'Neill) and The Movement Reconsidered. Leader is also general editor of the Oxford History of Life-Writing, a projected seven-volume series. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Leader astutely leaves the most radical essay until last: in 'The Unstoried Life', analytic philosopher, Galen Strawson restates his objection to the view of 'narrativists' (as he terms them) that all human life is life-writing, and that life-writing is not only a necessary task for any self-respecting human being, but also, at least in the best case, an exercise of autonomy - self-determination'. His engagingly tendentious piece makes the case for 'non-narratives' - people like him - who do not fundamentally experience life or the self as narrative unities, whether (ostensibly) scripted from without or within. Still, the 'sampling' offered in On Life- Writing makes a nuanced and welcome ... contribution to life-writing studies.

• Introduction ; 1. Unravelling Shakespeare's Life ; 2. A Boy from Stratford: Shakespearean Biography And Romantic Nationalism ; 3. Romantic Biography: Conveying a Sense of Presence, Immediacy and Authenticity ; 4. Prosopography and Crowded Attention in Old and New Media ; 5. Writing Real People ; 6. Rosamund and Ravelstein: The Discandying of a Creator's Confection ; 7. 'From Memory': Literary Encounters and Life-Writing ; 8. Medieval Life-Writing and the Strange Case of Margery Kempe Of Lynn (c.1373-c.1440) ; 9. The Materiality of Early Modern Life-Writing: The Case of Richard Stonley ; 10. The Autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin ; 11. The Worst Thing I Ever Did: The Contemporary Confessional Memoir ; 12. The Rights to a Life ; 13. Human 2.0? Life-Writing In the Digital Age ; 14. Psychoanalysis and Autobiography ; 15. The Unstoried Life

Zachary Leader grew up in California but has lived in Britain for over forty years. He was educated at Northwestern University, Trinity College, Cambridge, and Harvard. In addition to teaching at Roehampton, he has taught at Caltech and the University of Chicago. He is the author of Reading Blake's Songs, Writer's Block, Revision and Romantic Authorship, and The Life of Kingsley Amis, a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Biography. The first volume of his two-volume biography of Saul Bellow will be published this May. He has edited three volumes for OUP: On Modern British Fiction, Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Major Works (with Michael O'Neill) and The Movement Reconsidered. Leader is also general editor of the Oxford History of Life-Writing, a projected seven-volume series. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Leader astutely leaves the most radical essay until last: in 'The Unstoried Life', analytic philosopher, Galen Strawson restates his objection to the view of 'narrativists' (as he terms them) that all human life is life-writing, and that life-writing is not only a necessary task for any self-respecting human being, but also, at least in the best case, an exercise of autonomy - self-determination'. His engagingly tendentious piece makes the case for 'non-narratives' - people like him - who do not fundamentally experience life or the self as narrative unities, whether (ostensibly) scripted from without or within. Still, the 'sampling' offered in On Life- Writing makes a nuanced and welcome ... contribution to life-writing studies.

• Introduction ; 1. Unravelling Shakespeare's Life ; 2. A Boy from Stratford: Shakespearean Biography And Romantic Nationalism ; 3. Romantic Biography: Conveying a Sense of Presence, Immediacy and Authenticity ; 4. Prosopography and Crowded Attention in Old and New Media ; 5. Writing Real People ; 6. Rosamund and Ravelstein: The Discandying of a Creator's Confection ; 7. 'From Memory': Literary Encounters and Life-Writing ; 8. Medieval Life-Writing and the Strange Case of Margery Kempe Of Lynn (c.1373-c.1440) ; 9. The Materiality of Early Modern Life-Writing: The Case of Richard Stonley ; 10. The Autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin ; 11. The Worst Thing I Ever Did: The Contemporary Confessional Memoir ; 12. The Rights to a Life ; 13. Human 2.0? Life-Writing In the Digital Age ; 14. Psychoanalysis and Autobiography ; 15. The Unstoried Life