I had written three book-length biographies and decided that I should put all that hard-earned experience to good use and so I persuaded A&C Black to add this title to their “Writing Handbooks” series. My thought was that we are all interested in people and many of us have wanted to write a life-story but have been unsure how to set about it or how to bring such a project to a satisfactory end. My book is, I hope, a practical and helpful introduction to writing biography and autobiography and looks at the various forms that such a project might take.