Introduction

As the micro-historian Giovanni Levi has written, ‘doubts about even the possibility of biography are a recurring factor’.2 Given that biography has been practised since ancient times, and that biographical works such as Plutarch’s Lives and Boswell’s Life of Johnson are acknowledged to be among the classics of literature, this may seem absurd. On reection, though, it is easy to understand why it is the case. As C.S. Lewis observed,

In this he was making a point that many others have made: that the past is largely unknowable. At rst glance this would indeed seem to be a formidable obstacle to the practice of biography.