Autobiographies

The word autobiography is derived from the Greek words – auto or ‘self’, bios – life and graphein – to write, combining the three one can conclude that an autobiography is a biography written by a person himself/herself or in collaboration with a writer (sometimes also stated “as told to” or “with”). The origin of this form of writing dates back to the early 18th century and earlier. Those penning biographies take into account many viewpoints and various documents of the subject. An autobiography may sometimes be based solely on the writer’s memory.

The term “ad hoc autobiography” was coined by Paul Delaney for those autobiographies that are penned with the intention to exploit some temporary notoriety. These are often written by a ghost-writer (a person who writes on behalf of another person with the understanding that the other person will get the credit for the work and not the actual writer) and are generally found among autobiographies of celebrities, professional sports persons, public figures, politicians and more. Perhaps Mark Twain was the first public figure to use photographs in his autobiography since he was interested and concerned with being in control of his photographic persona. Today, sports autobiography and celebrity autobiography are available abound, and has become a multi-million dollar business segment as they often make it to the bestseller’s list.