15 Great Biographies of Women Authors
By Nava Atlas | On November 21, 2017 | Updated March 22, 2023 | Comments (0)
There are so many great biographies of women authors — what to choose depends on which classic authors you love and want to know about. A great biography reveals much about the author’s inner life as well as their often tumultuous love life and public persona.
The list of a dozen biographies that follow is by no means definitive and nowhere near exhaustive — it’s simply a great place to start when you want to learn more about your favorite women writers of the recent past.
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Romantic Outlaws
There’s a profound connection between Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 – 1797) and Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851), author of the 1818 masterpiece Frankenstein. These two famous authors were, of course, mother and daughter. A book well worth reading about these women is the remarkable biography, Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon.
Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley were physically part of each other’s lives only for a few days as Mary Wollstonecraft died ten days after giving birth to Mary due to an infection. Yet the space they filled in each other’s lives was much wider.
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Becoming Jane Austen
In Becoming Jane Austen (2003), Jon Spence shows how events and people in the beloved British authors’ life influenced her fiction.
This biographer argues that the tangled love stories Jane Austen tells came not just from her sharp observations and fertile imagination, but also from her own experiences. This biography was the basis of the 2007 film Becoming Jane. More about Becoming Jane Austen.
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Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart
This illuminating 2016 biography by Claire Harman goes beyond what we already know of the Brontë sisters and their brief, relatively isolated lives and literary genius.
What’s revealed is a young woman ahead of her time who pursued her art with ambition and not a little rebellion. We get a clearer picture of Charlotte Brontë‘s intense personality from letters never before seen.
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Edith Wharton
In Hermione Lee’s 2007 biography of Edith Wharton, she skillfully demonstrates how this classic American author’s own life was as fascinating as that of the most interesting characters she created.
Filled with scandal, heartbreak, and much success, Wharton’s life bridged two centuries and two continents. Edith Wharton emerges from her image as a flinty heiress, and emerges more fully drawn as a progressive and complex, and fully deserving of her hard-earned literary reputation.
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Fannie: The Talent for Success
of Writer Fannie Hurst
Fannie (1999) is a thoroughly engrossing biography by Brooke Kroeger of the fascinating American author who has been all but forgotten, but shouldn’t be. Best known for Imitation of Life, the prolific Fannie Hurst was also a humanitarian and fought for feminist and civil rights causes. Read more about Fannie: The Talent for Sucess of Writer Fannie Hurst.
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In Search of Nella Larsen
George Hutchinson’s 2006 biography of Nella Larsen, a writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance, delves into her experience as a mixed-race woman in a society obsessed with identity.
This factor weighed in on Larsen’s unique perspective on the world, showing up as themes in her two novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929).More about In Search of Nella Larsen.
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Marmee & Louisa
Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother is a 2012 publication by celebrated biographer Eve LaPlante. It paints a fascinating double portrait of Louisa May Alcott and her mother, Abigail May Alcott — the real “Marmee” that inspired the matriarch of the March family of Little Women.
Abigail May Alcott is herself an excellent writer with a sharp intellect. Louisa and her mother, dedicated abolitionists and promoters of women’s rights, are central to this love letter to the time and place in which they lived, and to the enduring bond they enjoyed.
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Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee
Mockingbird by Charles J. Shields sets out to trace the life of publicity-shy Harper Lee. The culmination of hundreds of interviews, along with information never before seen, adds up to a rich portrait of the author of the beloved American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. More about Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee.
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Portrait of a Marriage:
Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson
In Portrait of a Marriage (1998), Nigel Nicolson (a son of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson) offers an insightful view of his parents’ unconventional marriage. Vita and her husband both conducted affairs with same-sex parters, yet sustained a loving and committed marriage with one another. In addition, Vita was a literary force to be reckoned with as well as a master gardener. More about Portrait of a Marriage
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Savage Beauty:
The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
If ever there was a poet whose life was as fascinating as her work, it would be Edna St. Vincent Millay. She captured public imagination with her scandalous life, taking numerous lovers of both sexes, rejecting society’s conventions, and an open marriage.
In this bold 2001 biography by Nancy Milford, Millay fully emerges as the passionate, bold woman fearless woman whose groundbreaking poetry and trailblazing life should never be forgotten.
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Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette
Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette), the French author whose personal life and prolific pen rivaled that of her countrywoman, George Sand, if fully revealed in this 1999 biography by Judith Thurman.
It’s an engrossing journey through Colette’s scandalous career as a stage performer, her many love affairs with both men and women, and as the creator of some of the 20th century’s most distinctive literature. More about Secrets of the Flesh.
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Road to Tara: The Life of Margaret Mitchell
It has been said many times that Margaret Mitchell was as complicated and fascinating as her iconic heroine, Scarlett O’Hara. And Gone With the Wind was a publishing phenomenon rarely seen before or since, in turn inspiring one of the most successful film adaptations ever.
In Anne Edward’s compelling 1983 biography (which was released in paperback only in 2014), the success of her only book and how it shattered her private life is fully explored.
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Willa Cather: Double Lives
Another fascinating biography by Hermione Lee (whose Edith Wharton is listed above), this one offers a new appraisal of a great literary artist whose contributions are often overlooked.
In this 2017 book, Lee presents Willa Cather‘s battle between the masculine and feminine within herself, and offers new insights about her place in American literary canon, both in her own time and today.
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The Revenue Stamp –
An Autobiography by Amrita Pritam
Amrita Pritam (1919 – 2005) was a poet, novelist, and essayist, with a huge body of work to her credit. So it’s surprising that her autobiography is just under two hundred pages, and it’s curious why she chose this particular title — The Revenue Stamp.
Behind the name is the exchange between Amrita and the famous author and journalist, Khushwant Singh, who told her that her life was of so little consequence that it could be written on the back of a revenue stamp (‘Raseedi Ticket’ in the original). Read more about The Revenue Stamp.
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The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
by Gertrude Stein
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933) is actually the autobiography of Gertrude Stein, written as if in her longtime companion’s voice. Considered one of the most accessible of Stein’s experimental, often ponderous works, it was a commercial and critical success. It’s indeed narrated as if Alice is doing the writing, and this comes through in a fresh and vibrant manner.
The book played with the notion of what an autobiography could be and helped to cement the legacy of its author and, no doubt, Alice B. Toklas as well.
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More author biographies to explore
- I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys
- Astrid Lindgren: The Woman Behind Pippi Longstocking
- From Sarah to Sydney, Unsung Creator of All-of-a-Kind Family
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