Collection: Adult Non Fiction - Biography

Alexander the Great's story often reads like fiction: son to a snake-loving mother and a battle-scarred father; tutored by Aristotle; a youth from the periphery of the Greek world who took part in his first campaign aged sixteen, becoming king of Macedon at twenty and king of Asia by twenty-five;...

"An intimate, revisionist portrait of the early years of Fidel Castro, showing how an unlikely young Cuban led his country in revolution and transfixed the world. Castro got his toughness from a father who survived Spain's nasty class system and colonial wars to become one of the most successful ...

A groundbreaking new biography of one of the twentieth century's most important poets On the fiftieth anniversary of the death of T. S. Eliot, Robert Crawford presents us with the first volume of a definitive biography of this poetic genius. Young Eliot traces the life of the twentieth century's ...

Elizabeth I is renowned for the hugely successful reign that has led her to be considered one of the most celebrated monarchs in English history. But what of the trials she faced in her tumultuous early life? Her status as a princess didn't last long - when she was less than three years old, her ...

A fascinating journey into the early life of H.G. Wells, the father of science fiction, from one of Britain's best biographers How did the first forty years of H. G. Wells' life shape the father of science fiction? From his impoverished childhood in a working-class English family, to his determin...

From Rhodes Scholar to union leader to political powerhouse: how Bobbie became Bob, Australia's iconic larrikin PM. The new biography from award-winning historian David Day sheds new light on the early years of a political legend. David Day's biography of the young Bob Hawke takes readers on a jo...

When Adolf Hitler went to war in 1914, aged 25, he lived through what he would later call the 'most stupendous experience of my life'. Twice decorated for bravery, the future dictator thrilled to battle, relished violence and was willing to give everything for his beloved Fatherland. He heard of ...

"The traditional view of Leonardo da Vinci's career is that he enjoyed a promising start in Florence and then moved to Milan to become the celebrated court artist of Duke Ludovico Sforza. Young Leonardo proves all of this wrong. It reveals how the struggling painter was repeatedly snubbed by the ...

"The Young Man is Annie Ernaux's account of her passionate love affair with A., a man some 30 years younger, when she was in her fifties. The relationship pulls her back to memories of her own youth and at the same time leaves her feeling ageless, outside of time- together with a sense that she i...

In the history of American popular culture, there is no more dramatic story--no swifter or loftier ascent to the pinnacle of success and no more tragic downfall--than that of Orson Welles. In this magisterial biography, Patrick McGilligan brings young Orson into focus as never before. He chronicl...