Books by Carl Rollyson

Documentary Film: A Primer provides a succinct introduction to the nature of the documentary, drawing on examples from the work of Robert Flaherty, Dziga Vertov, Leni Riefenstahl, Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, Spalding Gray, Cindy Sherman, Susan Sontag, and others. The documentaries discussed cover a range of subjects including the Russian Revolution, the Holocaust, and the worlds of fashion and sports. This incisive foray into the essentials of documentary is then buttressed by an in depth discussion of the career of Jill Craigie, a British director/writer who brought to the cinema an uncompromising socialist and feminist perspective during the Second World War. How Craigie got her films produced by a major studio, and why her work could not be replicated in postwar Britain, reveal not only the way documentaries are made but also why they remain a controversial and problematic genre.A selection of Rollyson's reviews of contemporary documentaries provides a model for discussing the genre. Students and fans of documentaries will find his list of classic documentaries on VHS and DVD and his excerpts from other critics of the genre of special interest. His topics for discussion section make this book a valuable resource for teachers as well.

Most book reviewers know very little about the history or the art of biography. Indeed, if there is any art in biography, it is the rare reviewer that acknowledges it or knows how to discuss it. Usually the reviewer regards biography as an occasion to wax eloquent about what he or she thinks of the subject. Little space, if any, is devoted to the biography's structure or style, to the biographer's peculiar problems, or to how the biography relates to others about the same subject.Carl Rollyson, a professional biographer and weekly columnist (On Biography) for The New York Sun, explores the ramifications of authorized and unauthorized biographies, investigates the relationship between biography and history, biography and fiction, biography and autobiography, as well commenting on certain perennial biographical subjects such as Napoleon, on sub genres such as children's biography, and on the most recent developments in life writing.Rollyson's aim is to reach not merely scholars but that vast general audience addicted to reading biography, enhancing their pleasure by providing insight (or you might say, the inside word) on how biographies are put together.

Essays in Biography is a play on words conveying Carl Rollyson's attempt to explore the nature of biography in pieces about the history of the genre and in portrayals of biographers (Plutarch, Leon Edel, and W. A. Swanberg), literary figures (Lillian Hellman, Jack London), philosophers and critics (Leo Strauss and Hippolyte Taine), political figures (Winston Churchill and Napoleon), and artists (Rembrandt and Rubens). An essay in biography, Rollyson argues, is an effort to comprehend a life that is inherently incomplete and subject to revision. Many of the facts about a biographical subject's life that are blandly presented in reference books have been discovered by biographers at great cost to their reputations. With the history of biography as a censored genre in mind, he encourages readers of biography to look critically at the biographies they read--no matter whether those biographies are book-length narratives or short encyclopedia entries.Many of the pairings in Essays in Biography are meant to evoke Plutarch's presentation of "parallel lives." The biographical essay, Rollyson concludes, is a unique form of knowledge, one that modern critics have devalued by trying to separate the creator from his creation.

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. This memoir of a professional biographer's life tells the inside story of how he became interested in his subjects and reveals the mechanics of the trade.

Amy Lowell has been extolled as a founding member of the Imagist group, derided as the "demon saleswoman" of poetry, and shunned as a lesbian, cigar-smoking sensationalist. This provocative biography draws on newly discovered material to restore the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet to her full humanity in an era that, at last, is beginning to appreciate the contributions of gays and lesbians to America's heritage.

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."-M. Thomas Inge.