Following the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649, the later seventeenth century witnessed an explosion of print culture in England, including an unprecedented boom in biographical writing. Andrea Walkden offers a case study examination of this fascinating trend, bringing together texts that generations of scholars have considered piecemeal and primarily as sources for their own research.

Private Lives Made Public: The Invention of Biography in Early Modern England contributes an incisive, fresh take on "life-writing"--a catch-all label that, in contemporary discourse, encompasses...