Few literary celebrities have lived with more abandon and under a brighter spotlight than Lillian Hellman. Even fewer have been doubted as absolutely as Hellman, famously denounced by rival Mary McCarthy. Attacked by critics and idealized by admirers, Hellman's determination to control and manipulate her image helped make her a figure of unknowable half-truths and rumors. Until now.

Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels is the first biography of the iconoclastic playwright written with the full cooperation of her family, friends, and inner circle. Deborah Martinson...