Great FS biographies

I’ve been reading a lot of biographies of historical figures lately. Just finished Cristian Meier’s Julius Caesar, which I found very interesting.

Thought it would be fun to start a thread on favourite biographies published by FS. What are your favourites?

Southey’s Life Of Nelson - Folio Society 1956 is a favorite.

Duff Cooper- Talleyrand
Edward Holmes- The Life of Mozart
Alexander Thayer- Life of Beethoven
George Lefebvre- Napoleon

Ron Chernow - Hamilton

I'm reading the Folio edition of Ackroyd's biography of Blake at the moment. I'm a Blake person more than a biography person, so I can't offer a strong opinion in comparison to other biographies, but I'm enjoying it.

>5 abysswalker: Having just read the LEC edition of Blake’s poems, I’m curious whether Ackroyd’s biography includes much commentary on the longer prophetic works (Milton, etc.). Or if you have other recommendations for books that explicate Blake’s weird and wonderful long poems, I would appreciate hearing them.

>6 JacobHolt: I'm only about 40% in Ackroyd's book, but I assume he will touch on the longer poems at some point. Will report back.

Regarding other treatments, my first recommendation would be Northrop Frye's Fearful Symmetry. It is an academic monograph, and somewhat dense, but beautifully written and from a time when such works were not full of esoteric faux technical jargon.

>7 abysswalker: Thanks! I will look into the Frye book--sounds promising.

Haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to Joseph Banks: a Life for a little non-fiction background to the Aubrey-Maturin novels.