ABSTRACT

Auto/biography is currently one of the most popular literary genres, widely supposed to illuminate the study of the individual and his or her personal circumstances. Missing Persons suggests that auto/biography is, in fact, based on fictions, both about the person and about what it is possible to know about any one individual.

Organised into chapters which consider particular kinds of auto/biographical writing, such as work on the British Royal Family and auto/biographies of twentieth-century men, this book demonstrates the absences and evasions - indeed the `missing persons - of auto/biography. Mary Evans' book will provide invaluable reading for students of womens studies, sociology and cultural studies courses.

chapter Chapter 1|15 pages

The possibilities of auto/ biography

chapter Chapter 2|15 pages

Lies, all lies

Auto/biography as fiction

chapter Chapter 3|14 pages

Imperatives of deference

chapter Chapter 4|21 pages

Boys' tales

chapter Chapter 5|12 pages

Looking for daddy

chapter Chapter 6|9 pages

The imagined self:

The impossibility of auto/ biography