Written Lives

Blurb

Written Lives is a collection of biographical sketches of famous literary figures, written by Spanish author Javier Marías and originally published in 2000. Margaret Jull Costa's English translation was published by New Directions in 2006.
Authors featured include:
Djuna Barnes
Joseph Conrad
Arthur Conan Doyle
Isak Dinesen
Marie du Deffand
William Faulkner
Henry James
James Joyce
Rudyard Kipling
Malcolm Lowry
Thomas Mann
Yukio Mishima
Vladimir Nabokov
Rainer Maria Rilke
Arthur Rimbaud
Laurence Sterne
Robert Louis Stevenson
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Ivan Turgenev
Oscar Wilde
There is also, towards the end of the book, a section entitled 'Fugitive Women', which includes shorter sketches of Emily Brontë, Julie de Lespinasse, Violet Hunt, Vernon Lee, Adah Isaacs Menken and Lady Hester Stanhope. The final chapter, 'Perfect Artists', looks more generally at the tradition of the literary artist.