26 Questions in 2026 (#11)

To kick off the new year the Classics Club posted a list of 26 questions designed to help members consider their relationship with reading classics. I plan to answer one question every few weeks throughout 2026. 

#11 -Favorite biography about a classic author you’ve read, or the biography on a classic author you most want to read, if any?

I love a good biography, and picking a favorite, even when I limit it to just considering biographies of "classic authors" is impossible. Here are 5 literary biographies that I enjoyed:

1. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
2. Jane Kenyon: A Literary Life by John H. Timmerman
3. The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene by Richard Greene
4. Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This? by Marian Meade
5. Virginia Woolf: A Writers' Life by Lyndall Gordon

On my TBR list are biographies of Barabara Pym, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Dick Francis, Anais Nin, Josephine Tey, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dashiell Hammett, Margaret Wise Brown, E. M. Forster, and Willa Cather.