Carl Rollyson

A new, vivid account of the final months of the esteemed writer’s life In her last days, Sylvia Plath struggled to break out from the control of the towering figure of her husband Ted Hughes. In the antique mythology of his retinue, she had become the gorgon threatening to bring down the House...

Ronald Colman, the silent film star, who showed a generation of actors how to perform for the talkies, remained Hollywood’s gentleman hero for more than two decades. He appeared with many of the screen’s leading ladies, including Lillian Gish, Joan Bennett, Kay Francis, Loretta Young, Ida...

Picasso has often been called the greatest artist of this century....

Rebecca West was a prophet - one not always appreciated in her own day....

William Faulkner emerged from the ravaged South - half backwoods, half defeated empire - transforming his corner of Mississippi into the fictional Yoknapatawpha County and bestowing on the world some of the most revolutionary and enduring literature of the 20th century. The personal story behind...

Professional biographer Carl Rollyson has pioneered a new kind of biography for children and adults alike....

Since her death, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has become an endless source of fascination for a wide audience ranging from readers of The Bell Jar, her semiautobiographical novel, to her groundbreaking poetry as exemplified by Ariel.

With the publication of Susan Sontag's diaries, the development of her career can now be evaluated in a more genetic sense, so that the origins of her ideas and plans for publication are made plain in the context of her role as a public intellectual who is increasingly aware of her impact on her...

Called "one of nature's noblemen", Dana Andrews emerges from Hollywood Enigma as an admirable American success story, fighting his inner demons and ultimately winning....

In American popular culture, Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) has evolved in stature from movie superstar to American icon. Monroe's own understanding of her place in the American imagination and her effort to perfect her talent as an actress are explored with great sensitivity in Carl Rollyson's...

In Marilyn Monroe Day by Day: A Timeline of People, Places, and Events, Carl Rollyson provides a documentary approach to the life and legend of this singular personality....

By the end of The Life of William Faulkner, Volume 1, the young Faulkner had gone from an unpromising, self-mythologizing bohemian to the author of some of the most innovative and enduring literature of the century, including The Sound and the Fury and Light in August. The second and concluding...

The first book to survey the broad range of Ms. Sontag's work, including full discussions of her fiction. One can ask for no better guidebook...

Too many biographers, Rollyson believes, evince no interest in the biographical tradition. They're concerned only with possession of their subjects....

Rollyson proposes a number of apologias for biography, including the thought that in the right hands the literary biography is a continuation of the writer's work and life....

Jill Craigie - filmmaker, writer, pioneering feminist, and devoted wife to former Labour leader Michael Foot - led an extraordinary life....

This first biography of Susan Sontag (1933-2004) is now fully revised and updated, providing an even more intimate portrayal of the influential writer’s life and career. The authors base this revision on Sontag’s newly released private correspondence, including emails, and the letters and...

Some critics rank biographers just above serial murderers. The author of this book, a self-described member of the Samuel Johnson school, doesn't share this view. An account of a life, he believes, should adhere to the truth as the biographer sees it, not to the sentiments of others. This memoir...

William Faulkner has been the topic of numerous biographies, papers, and international attention. Yet there are no collected resources providing a comprehensive scope of Faulkner’s life and work before now. William Faulkner Day by Day provides unique insight into the daily life of one of...

Rollyson shrewdly probes Faulkner's dynamic and changing uses of the past. Also taking advantage of his own work as a biographer, Rollyson has updated, revised, and expanded his original book - extending his dialogue with recent Faulkner critics....