ABSTRACT
THE PROSPECT OF participating in a conference on “The Psychology of Biography” both interested and disturbed me. Why does a biographer pick a particular subject for a biographical study? Once having chosen a subject, how does the biographer affect the life of that subject by his or her own particular and idiosyncratic interpretation? Finally, and perhaps most important, how, during the course of long years of research and writing, does the subject affect the biographer? These basic questions had interested me throughout the thirty-five years I had been engaged in biographical study.
