An autobiography, sometimes called an autobio, is a book someone writes about their own life. It shares a personal story that includes the writer's experiences, memories, and thoughts. This type of writing lets people share their unique views and life events, helping readers learn about the writer's journey and the time or culture they lived in.
The word "autobiography" was first used in 1797, but writing about one's life has been around for much longer. One of the earliest examples is Saint Augustine's Confessions (around 400 A.D.), which is seen as one of the first Western autobiographies. Unlike biographies, which are written by others, autobiographies are based on the writer's own memories and how they understand events. This means they can sometimes include mistakes or added details, as the writer may remember things differently or choose to describe them in a certain way.
Autobiographies can be written in different ways. Memoirs focus on specific parts of a person's life or certain themes, rather than telling their whole story. Spiritual autobiographies, like Confessions, describe a person's religious experiences and growth. Fictional autobiographies are novels written in the first person, where a made-up character's life is presented as if it were a real autobiography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used in a negative way by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical The Monthly Review. He called the term a mix of other words but criticized it as "overly concerned with details." However, the next recorded use of the word was in its current meaning by Robert Southey in 1809. Even though the term was first named in the early 1800s, writing about one's own life in the first person began long ago, during ancient times. Roy Pascal explains that autobiography is different from the regular self-reflection found in journals or diaries. He says that autobiography looks back on a person's life from a specific moment in time, while a diary covers many moments. Autobiography is written from the moment it is created. While biographers usually use many different sources and opinions, autobiography may depend only on the writer's memory. The memoir form is closely connected to autobiography, but it tends to focus more on others than on the person writing about their own life.
Autobiographical works are naturally subjective. The writer's inability or unwillingness to remember events clearly can sometimes lead to incorrect or misleading information. Some sociologists and psychologists have observed that autobiography allows the author to reconstruct past events.
Related forms
A spiritual autobiography is a story that describes a person's journey toward God, including their struggles, religious conversion, and sometimes times when they faced challenges in their faith. These writings often show how the person believes God's plan was part of their life through their experiences with the Divine. One of the earliest examples is Augustine's Confessions. Over time, this type of writing has included works from other religions, such as Mohandas Gandhi's An Autobiography, Black Elk's Black Elk Speaks, and Deliverance from Error by Al-Ghazali. Spiritual autobiographies often aim to support the writer's religious beliefs.
A memoir is different from an autobiography. An autobiography usually covers the full life of the writer, while a memoir focuses on specific memories, feelings, and emotions. Memoirs are often written by people in public roles, like politicians or military leaders, to share details about their experiences. An early example is Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic Wars), which describes battles he fought during the Gallic Wars. His other work, Commentarii de Bello Civili (Commentaries on the Civil War), explains events from a civil war between 49 and 48 BC.
Leonor López de Córdoba (1362–1420) is believed to have written the first autobiography in Spanish. The English Civil War (1642–1651) led to more memoirs, including works by Sir Edmund Ludlow and Sir John Reresby. In France, Cardinal de Retz (1614–1679) and the Duc de Saint-Simon wrote memoirs during the same period.
A "fictional autobiography" is a novel that tells the story of a fictional character as if they wrote it themselves. The character is the narrator, and the story includes their thoughts and experiences. Early examples include Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders and Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. A modern example is J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Another example is Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, as noted on the original book's cover. This term can also apply to fictional works that claim to be real-life autobiographies of actual people, such as Robert Nye's Memoirs of Lord Byron.
History
In ancient times, works like these were often called "apologia," meaning they explained or defended the author's actions rather than simply telling their life story. John Henry Newman's 1864 book, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, follows this tradition.
The historian Flavius Josephus began his autobiography, Josephi Vita (written around 99 A.D.), by praising himself, then explained his actions as a Jewish leader during a rebellion in Galilee.
The writer Libanius (lived around 314–394 A.D.) wrote his life story, Oration I (started in 374 A.D.), as a type of speech, not one meant to be read aloud in private.
Augustine of Hippo (354–430 A.D.) titled his life story Confessions, a name later used by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century. Augustine’s Confessions is considered the first Western autobiography and influenced many Christian writers during the Middle Ages. It describes his early life filled with pleasure, his time with a religious group called the Manichaeans, and his later return to Christianity. His views on sex and morality shaped Western religious thought. Confessions is seen as one of the greatest works of Western literature.
Peter Abelard’s 12th-century work, Historia Calamitatum, shares similarities with Augustine’s Confessions and is a notable example of autobiography from that time.
In the 15th century, Leonor López de Córdoba, a Spanish noblewoman, wrote Memorias, which may be the first autobiography written in Castilian (a language used in Spain).
Zāhir ud-Dīn Mohammad Bābur, who started the Mughal Empire in South Asia, wrote a journal called Bāburnāma (meaning "Book of Babur") between 1493 and 1529.
One of the first major autobiographies of the Renaissance was written by Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), a sculptor and goldsmith. He called his work Vita ("Life") and wrote it between 1556 and 1558. He said people should write their life stories only after they are over 40. This idea remained common for many years.
Another autobiography from the same period was De vita propria by Gerolamo Cardano, an Italian mathematician, doctor, and astrologer.
One of the first autobiographies written in an Indian language was Ardhakathānaka by Banarasidas, a Jain businessman and poet from Mughal India. He wrote it in Braj Bhasa, a dialect of Hindi. The work describes his journey from a wild youth to a religious person and includes details about life during the Mughal era.
The earliest known autobiography in English is The Book of Margery Kempe, written in 1438. It tells about her religious experiences, pilgrimages, and her marriage. The full text was not published until 1936.
Captain John Smith’s autobiography, published in 1630, was once thought to be mostly made-up stories. However, later research showed many of his accounts were true.
Other important 17th-century English autobiographies include those by Lord Herbert of Cherbury (published in 1764) and John Bunyan (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, 1666).
Jarena Lee (1783–1864) was the first African American woman to have a published biography in the United States.
During the Romantic period, autobiographies became more personal and emotional, influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions. Examples include Stendhal’s The Life of Henry Brulard and Memoirs of an Egotist, and William Hazlitt’s Liber Amoris.
As education and media grew, more people became famous, and autobiographies became common. Writers like Charles Dickens, politicians, philosophers, and entertainers wrote about their lives. These stories often included details about childhood, unlike earlier works.
From the 17th century, "scandalous memoirs" by people pretending to be libertines (those who broke rules about sex and morality) were popular. These books were usually written by ghostwriters and not read by the people they claimed to be about. Some modern autobiographies, like those of athletes and celebrities, are also written by ghostwriters. Some celebrities, like Naomi Campbell, admit they never read their own books. Books like A Million Little Pieces by James Frey were later found to have made up parts of the story.
Today, autobiographies are widely read and written. A Fortunate Life by Albert Facey (1979) is a famous Australian book. Memoirs like Angela’s Ashes and The Color of Water helped more people try writing their own stories. Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts is a recent example she calls "autotheory," combining autobiography with ideas about theory.
A type of writing that mixes real events with fictional elements but still claims to be true is called "autofiction."