BIOGRAPHY, that department of lit erature which treats of the individual lives of men or women; and also, a prose narrative detailing the history and un folding the character of an individual written by another. When written by the individual whose history is told it is called an autobiography.
Though the term biography is modern, the kind of literature which it describes is ancient. In the Book of Genesis there are biographies, or at least memoirs of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and others. Homer's "Odyssey" may be considered to be an extended biog raphy of Ulysses, limited, however, to the most interesting period of his life, that of his wanderings. The most elab orate Greek biography was Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" ("Bioi Paralleloi"), con sisting of 46 memoirs of Greek, Roman, and other celebrities; it was published about A. D. 80.
Modern biographical literature may be considered to date from the 17th century, since which time individual biographies have multiplied enormously. Diction aries of biography have proved extremely useful, Moreri's "Historical and Critical Dictionary" (1671), being, perhaps, the first of this class. During the 19th cen
tury the most ambitious biographical work to be attempted was Leslie Ste phen's "Dictionary of National Biogra phy" (completed in about 60 volumes, the first of which appeared in January, 1885). There followed Appleton's "Cy clopmdia of American Biography" (7 vols., 1887-1900) ; White's "National Cy clopmdia of American Biography" (New York) ; "Men and Women of the Time" (London) ; Vapereau's "Universal Dic tionary of Contemporaries" (Paris) ; "Lamb's Biographical Dictionary of the United States" (8 vols., 1897, et seq.) ; and "Canadian Men and Women of the Time." Other biographical works of ref erence are "Who's Who" (English) ; "Who's Who in America" (latest edition 1920), and similar volumes for other countries, and for different classes and professions. Among works of more lim ited aim may be noted various "Lives of the Saints," Fox's "Book of Martyrs," various "Lives of the Poets," Boswell's "Life of Johnson," etc.