AustLit

'The basic shape of a biography is given by the facts of the life of its subject. The biographer's task is to make sense of these facts: to provide a map that will show the significance of the facts, their relationship to each other and to their historical context. This map will show the features of the subject's journey through life, but it is also the result of the biographer's own journey through the subject's life. The interactions between these two journeys give the book its shape, map its patterns. This paper will show some of the paths the author attempted and try to explain the directions the author eventually took.' (Source: http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal/article/view/1444)