Eminent Victorians, and Others

"Discretion", said Lytton Strachey, "is not the better part of biography." He applied the principle to dazzling effect in his lives of Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr Arnold of Rugby, and General Gordon, but it is perhaps understandable that to be the subject of a biography has often been an unwelcome thought.

The Reverend Patrick Brontë, telling his daughter Charlotte's biographer, "No quailing, Mrs Gaskell! No drawing back!" was somewhat unusual. "Mind, no biography!" Thackeray adjured his daughters, and towards the end of his life Henry James declared, "My sole wish is to frustrate as utterly as possible the post-mortem exploiter." Lord Campbell, whose Lives of the Lord Chancellors was written without the consent of the heirs or executors of its subjects, provoked the comment, "Then there is my noble and biographical friend who has added a new terror to death."

Oscar Wilde thought that, "Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography", and it was Arthur Balfour's view that "Biography should be written by an acute enemy." This, presumably, was to avoid the danger indicated by Macaulay's criticism that the biographer of Lord Clive could "see nothing but wisdom and justice in the action of his idol." Philip Guedalla's view was that "Biography...is one of the recognized forms of sport, and it is as unfair as only sport can be."

Autobiography ("an obituary in serial form with the last instalment missing", said Quentin Crisp) has also had its critics. "The reminiscences of Mrs Humphrey Ward," said Harold Laski, "convinced me that autobiography is a sin." Marshal Pétain thought that "To write one's memoirs is to speak ill of everybody except oneself." But perhaps one of the most common (if least admitted) reactions to the form was detailed by the drama critic James Agate, "Every time somebody's Autobiography comes out I turn to the Index to see if my name occurs." Seventy years later, Edwina Currie was to express her dismay at John Major's autobiography in similar terms: "I wasn't even in the index." Discretion in autobiographies can clearly also be overrated.

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