June 2023: Biography

Biography served as the topic for the June 2023 meeting.  Collectors presented an array of human subjects, spanning more than 300 years.  The people profiled ranged from shamelessly immoral poets to upstanding civic leaders and from confabulating spies to tireless champions for social justice.  The largest group of subjects biographized were some of the collectors' favorite authors, including Ray Bradbury, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Graham Greene. 

The biographies are listed by the chronological dates of the subjects.

John Wilmont (1647 – 1680)

Lord Rochester's Monkey

Greene, Graham.  Lord Rochester's Monkey: Being the Life of John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester.  New York: Viking Press, 1974.  John Wilmont, 2nd Earl of Rochester, was a Restoration poet and satirist, who lived a privileged and rakish life and died at the age of 33 from a sexually transmitted infection (most likely syphilis).  His poetry was often labeled pornographic and heavily censored, if not banned, throughout the Victorian Era.  Graham Greene set out to write an exhaustive biography of Wilmont between 1931 and 1934, following a brief revival of interest in Wilmont's poetry in the 1920s.  The biography was rejected by Greene's publisher at the time, William Heinemann, without reason or explanation; Greene did not know if it was because of his writing or the subject matter itself.  A passing reference to the unpublished biography in Greene's memoir, A Sort of Life (1971), sparked interest in the book, which was finally published 40 years after Greene wrote it.  This copy is inscribed by the author on the title page.

 

George Washington (1732 – 1799)

The Life of George Washington

Marshall, John.  The Life of George Washington.  Philadelphia: C. P. Wayne, 1804.  In 5 volumes, plus atlas.  John Marshall was the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, appointed by John Adams.  Shortly after taking his seat on the court in 1801, Marshall began working on a biography of George Washington, who died two years earlier.  The project was suggested by Associate Justice Bushrod Washington, a nephew of the first president, who supplied Marshall with his uncle's papers which he inherited.  The biography was published in five volumes from 1804 to 1807, plus a separately bound atlas containing ten engraved fold-out maps.  The Life of George Washington was the first biography of a United States president even published.

Title pages for Volume 1 and Atlas

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973)

Tolkien: A Biography

Carpenter, Humphrey.  Tolkien: A Biography.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1977.  Carpenter's authorized biography of J. R. R. Tolkien draws from interviews with Tolkien's family and friends as well as unrestricted access to Tolkien's papers.  Carpenter covers the writer's life from his sad and traumatic youth to the height of his writing career.  Carpenter focuses on Tolkien's academic career as both student and professor and highlights the importance of his relationships with his peers, especially C. S. Lewis and the Inklings.  Carpenter asserts that these men played a huge part in Tolkien's life and had a significant impact on his development as a writer.

J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century

Shippey, Tom.  J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2001.  Shippey's work appears more like a collection of literary criticism, but as a whole functions as a biography of Tolkien thematically arranged by the writer's works.  Shippey's Forward encapsulates Tolkien's life, then his essays on each of Tolkien's books examine the writer's life in greater detail during the time of writing that respective book.  Shippey contends Tolkien is "the most influential author of the century" and the book serves as a companion to Tolkien's works, situating them within the context of the author's life.

 

C. S. Lewis (1898 – 1963)

Harry Lee Poe's Biography of C. S. Lewis in 3 volumes

Poe, Harry Lee.  Becoming C. S. Lewis: A Biography of Young Jack Lewis.  Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books, 2019.  Harry Lee Poe, a relative of the family of Edgar Allan Poe, is a professor of Faith and Culture at Union University, where he has taught a class on Lewis for over 20 years.  His 3-volume biography of C. S. Lewis reveals new information about the novelist and corrects previous misunderstandings.  Broadly, the trilogy shows how Lewis's experiences of education, war, friendship, and loss shaped his writings and molded him into one of the most important writers of the 20th century.  Volume I, Becoming C. S. Lewis, covers Lewis from birth through 1918, when he was demobilized from the British Army and resumed his studies at Oxford University.

Poe, Harry Lee.  The Making of C. S. Lewis: From Atheist to Apologist (1918-1945).  Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books, 2021.  Volume II, The Making of C. S. Lewis, covers Lewis from 1918 through 1945, the period of his radical conversion to Christianity and the emergence of his writing career.

Poe, Harry Lee.  The Completion of C. S. Lewis: From War to Joy.  Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books, 2022.  Volume III, The Completion of C. S. Lewis, covers Lewis from 1945 through his death in 1963, a time marked both by tragedy and disappointment and by meaningful relationships.

 

Graham Greene (1904 – 1991)

The Unquiet Englishman

Greene, Richard.  The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene.  New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.  Graham Greene's life has been microscopically detailed by other biographers, but their works have been controversial mostly for focusing on the darker and more personal aspects of Greene's life.  Richard Greene—no relation to his subject—presents a more rounded, complex, three-dimensional character than previously published biographies.  The author of this 2020 biography had the advantage of access to letters, papers, and diaries by Greene and memoirs by those who knew and loved him that were not available to previous biographers. 

 

Juan Pujol García (1912 – 1988)

Agent Garbo

Talty, Stephan.  Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.  Juan Pujol, a Spaniard, wanted to contribute to the fight against Nazi Germany.  He approached British intelligence offering to become a spy but was roundly dismissed because he had no contacts or information of value.  So, he went to German intelligence and offered himself as a spy; the Nazis eagerly accepted his offer, unaware that his elaborate network of spies and sources were purely fictitious.  He then returned to British intelligence and informed them of his modest infiltration.  While he never had useful information for the Allies, he became an indispensable asset in feeding misinformation and deception to the Nazis, all while Germany paid him and his fictitious agents for their services.

 

Donald Lee Hollowell (1917 – 2004)

The Sacred Call

Hollowell, Louise and Martin C. Lehfeldt.  The Sacred Call: A Tribute to Donald L. Hollowell, Civil Rights Champion.  Winter Park, FL: FOUR-G Publishers, 1997.  Hollowell as an Atlanta-based civil rights attorney.  He successfully represented cases fighting for integration into Georgia's public schools, colleges, and universities.  He represented Martin Luther King, Jr., Julian Bond, Ralph David Abernathy, and other demonstrators arrested during the Civil Rights Movement.  He was also the attorney for Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, the two black students who first integrated the University of Georgia.  This biography is authored by his wife, Louise Hollowell, and Martin Lehfeldt, a friend and highly regarded planning consultant and, at the time, trustee of Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary.  This copy is inscribed on the front free endpaper by the authors, Louise Hollowell and Martin Lehfeldt, and the subject, Donald Hollowell.

 

Ray Bradbury (1920 – 2012)

Jonathan R. Eller's biography of Ray Bradbury in 3 volumes

Eller, Jonathan R.  Becoming Ray Bradbury.  Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011.  The first installment in the 3-volume definitive biography of Ray Bradbury by Jonathan R. Eller, Chancellor’s Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, senior textual editor of the Institute for American Thought, and director of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies.  Volume I of this Bradbury biography covers his childhood in Illinois and his early writing career after moving to California.

Eller, Jonathan R.  Ray Bradbury Unbound.  Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2014.  Volume II of this Bradbury biography begins with the publication of Fahrenheit 451 in 1953 and continues through his film and television career into the 1960’s.

Eller, Jonathan R.  Bradbury Beyond Apollo.  Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2020.  Volume III of this Bradbury biography begins in the early 1970’s when he became a household name and continues until his death in 2012.

 

John Lewis (1940 – 2020)

His Truth is Marching On

Meacham, Jon.  His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope.  New York: Random House, 2020.  Afterword by John Lewis.  Meacham chronicles the life of John Lewis from his youthful organizing and protesting during the Civil Rights Movement to his seasoned legislative work in Congress.  While he covers the well-known events in Lewis's life, Meacham focuses on Lewis's persistent hope and his commitment to nonviolence not merely as political strategies but as deeply ingrained personal and spiritual values.  Meacham draws on dozens of interviews with Lewis, conducted over several decades, to flesh out this inspirational biography.  This copy is signed on a bookplate on the front free end paper, as the book was released during the 2020 covid lockdown and in-person signings were cancelled.