ABSTRACT
This chapter explores consequences of emotional engagement by scientific biographers with their subjects. It uses three case studies in which the biographers exhibit very different types of emotion: sympathy in Charles Raven’s account of John Ray’s life and works; antipathy in Gerald Geison’s biography of Louis Pasteur; and irony in Donna Haraway’s treatment of Carl Akeley. There follow reflections on the advantages and risks of such emotional involvements; the problems faced by biographers in gaining access to the motives and feelings of their subjects; and the importance of considerations of literary genre in effective production and critical assessment of scientific biographies.
