The Greatest Biography Books of All Time

Click to learn how this list is calculated.

This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

View: List Grid Table
Filter by: Genres Dates Countries

Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
144 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
163 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
248 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
426 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
467 The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe 1979 American English
510 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 1845 American English
523 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
550 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
587 Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey 1918 British English
638 The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs 1961 American English
647 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
650 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
697 Facundo Domingo Faustino Sarmiento 1845 Argentinian Spanish
737 A Distant Mirror Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1978 American English
799 The Power Broker Robert Caro 1974 American English
807 Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke 1790 British English
820 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin 1791 American English
860 The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard 1922 British English
920 Henry James Leon Edel 1953 American English
945 Rights of Man Thomas Paine 1791 British English
945 Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari 1550 Italian Italian
990 The Life of Charlotte Brontë Elizabeth Gaskell 1857 British English
1016 Wild Swans Jung Chang 1991 Chinese English
1022 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 1925 German German
1100 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Jacobs 1861 American English
1147 Venice Jan Morris 1960 British English
1163 The Face of Battle John Keegan 1976 British English
1192 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
1230 Small Is Beautiful E. F. Schumacher 1973 British English
1275 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
1290 Lives of the Caesars Suetonius 121 Roman Latin
1301 Profiles in Courage John F. Kennedy 1956 American English
1314 Brief Lives John Aubrey 1898 British English
1398 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
1439 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
1441 Disraeli Robert Blake 1966 British English
1503 Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate 1977 American English
1572 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
1613 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1679 Truman David McCullough 1992 American English
1688 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William L. Shirer 1960 American English
1695 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families Philip Gourevitch 1998 American English
1700 The Last Lion William Manchester 1983 American English
1708 The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Edmund Morris 1979 American English
1746 Galileo Bertolt Brecht 1938 German German
1793 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
1795 The Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi 1986 Italian Italian
1876 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
1886 Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin 2005 American English
1888 Microbe Hunters Paul de Kruif 1926 American English
1931 Coming Of Age In Mississippi Anne Moody 1968 American English
1978 Essays, First And Second Series Ralph Waldo Emerson 1841 American English
2008 Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands Mary Seacole 1857 Jamaican English
2049 Jefferson and His Time Dumas Malone 1948 American English
2162 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
2185 Memoirs of Louis XIV Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de) 1740 French French
2199 The History of the Standard Oil Company Ida Tarbell 1904 American English
2224 The Quest For Corvo A. J. A. Symons 1934 British English
2224 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
2248 The Travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo 1300 Italian Old french
2292 Black Elk Speaks John G. Neihardt 1932 American English
2343 The Path to Power Robert Caro 1982 American English
2344 The Great Bridge David McCullough 1972 American English
2354 In the Heart of the Sea Nathaniel Philbrick 2000 American English
2355 The Travels of Ibn Battutah Ibn Battúta 1355 Moroccan Arabic
2360 Melbourne David Cecil 1939 British English
2361 The Naked Ape Desmond Morris 1967 British English
2401 Life of Christ Giovanni Papini 1921 Italian Italian
2401 Borstal Boy Brendan Behan 1958 Irish English
2621 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
2625 The Campaign of the Marne Sewell Tyng 1927 American English
2627 Rising Tide John Barry 1997 American English
2640 All But My Life Gerda Weissmann Klein 1957 American English
2642 Citizens Simon Schama 1989 British English
2648 Balzac Stefan Zweig 1946 Austrian German
2652 Strange Defeat Marc Bloch 1946 French French
2660 To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson 1940 American English
2713 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
2743 John Keats Walter Jackson Bate 1963 American English
2755 Diane Arbus Marvin Israel, Doon Arbus 1972 American English
2777 The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling Angus Wilson 1977 British English
2853 Hunger of Memory Richard Rodriguez 1982 American English
2864 James Joyce Richard Ellmann 1959 American English
2871 A Fire on the Moon Norman Mailer 1970 American English
2871 Oliver Cromwell L. du Garde Peach 1963 British English
2955 Memoirs of Cardinal De Retz Cardinal de Retz 1717 French French
2976 Conversations With Igor Stravinsky Robert Craft 1959 American English
2976 Earthly Paradise Colette 1966 French French
2998 Chronicles Bob Dylan 2004 American English
3031 Beethoven's Letters Ludwig van Beethoven 1866 German German
3031 Memories And Commentaries Igor Stravinsky 1960 Russian English
3031 Van Loon's Lives Hendrik Willem van Loon 1942 Dutch English
3031 Memoirs Of The Author Of A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman William Godwin 1798 British English
3031 Life Of John Sterling Thomas Carlyle 1851 British English
3031 John Keats Robert Gittings 1968 British English
3031 The Adams Jefferson Letters Lester J. Cappon 1959 American English
3105 Gorillas In The Mist Dian Fossey 1983 American English
3120 Naples 44 Norman Lewis 1978 British English
3169 Lust For Life Irving Stone 1934 American English
3179 A Midwife's Tale Laurel Thatcher Ulrich 1990 American English
3201 The Big Sea Langston Hughes 1940 American English
3201 Memoirs Of A Revolutionist Vera Figner 1920 Russian Russian
3201 The Memoirs Of Princess Dashkova Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova 1840 Russian Russian
3201 Young Man Luther Erik H. Erikson 1958 German English
3201 The Lives Of The Poets Samuel Johnson 1779 British English
3274 Mendeleyev's Dream Paul Strathern 2000 British English
3297 A Bright Shining Lie Neil Sheehan 1988 American English
3300 The Age of Jackson Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 1945 American English
3319 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
3321 Present at the Creation Dean Acheson 1969 American English
3323 Rome And A Villa Eleanor Clark 1952 American English
3332 Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage Richard Holmes 1993 British English
3343 Working Studs Terkel 1974 American English
3360 Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa Mungo Park 1799 British English
3368 Florence Nightingale Cecil Woodham-Smith 1950 British English
3377 Vermeer Lawrence Gowing 1952 British English
3380 The American Political Tradition Richard Hofstadter 1948 American English
3387 Treatise on Radioactivity Marie Curie 1910 French French
3387 The Battle with the Slum Jacob A. Riis 1902 Danish English
3387 Artemisia Anna Banti 1947 Italian Italian