The Greatest Biography Books of All Time

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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.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
156 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
183 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
199 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
410 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
440 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
441 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
447 The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe 1979 American English
455 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 1845 American English
507 Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey 1918 British English
617 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
644 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
646 Facundo Domingo Faustino Sarmiento 1845 Argentinian Spanish
725 The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs 1961 American English
742 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin 1791 American English
751 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Jacobs 1861 American English
754 The Power Broker Robert Caro 1974 American English
775 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 1925 German German
824 Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke 1790 British English
837 The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard 1922 British English
879 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
889 The Life of Charlotte Brontë Elizabeth Gaskell 1857 British English
894 Henry James Leon Edel 1953 American English
910 Rights of Man Thomas Paine 1791 British English
910 Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari 1550 Italian Italian
1068 Venice Jan Morris 1960 British English
1150 A Distant Mirror Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1978 American English
1179 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
1208 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
1250 Small Is Beautiful E. F. Schumacher 1973 British English
1257 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
1262 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
1297 Lives of the Caesars Suetonius 121 Roman Latin
1320 Brief Lives John Aubrey 1898 British English
1343 Profiles in Courage John F. Kennedy 1956 American English
1382 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
1419 Wild Swans Jung Chang 1991 Chinese English
1477 Treatise on Radioactivity Marie Curie 1910 French French
1570 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1580 Essays, First And Second Series Ralph Waldo Emerson 1841 American English
1604 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
1607 The Face of Battle John Keegan 1976 British English
1621 Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin 2005 American English
1649 To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson 1940 American English
1650 The Naked Ape Desmond Morris 1967 British English
1652 The History of the Standard Oil Company Ida Tarbell 1904 American English
1711 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
1714 Disraeli Robert Blake 1966 British English
1719 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
1794 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William L. Shirer 1960 American English
1815 The American Political Tradition Richard Hofstadter 1948 American English
1847 Galileo Bertolt Brecht 1938 German German
1873 Facing Mount Kenya Jomo Kenyatta 1938 Kenyan English
1886 Jefferson and His Time Dumas Malone 1948 American English
1903 Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands Mary Seacole 1857 Jamaican English
1910 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families Philip Gourevitch 1998 American English
1929 Behemoth Franz Neumann 1942 German English
2073 Citizens Simon Schama 1989 British English
2150 Coming Of Age In Mississippi Anne Moody 1968 American English
2184 The Path to Power Robert Caro 1982 American English
2189 The Travels of Ibn Battutah Ibn Battúta 1355 Moroccan Arabic
2195 Life of Christ Giovanni Papini 1921 Italian Italian
2216 The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt Edmund Morris 1979 American English
2221 Memoirs of Louis XIV Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de) 1740 French French
2225 Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate 1977 American English
2375 The Quest For Corvo A. J. A. Symons 1934 British English
2375 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
2405 The Campaign of the Marne Sewell Tyng 1927 American English
2409 The Travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo 1300 Italian Old french
2410 Borstal Boy Brendan Behan 1958 Irish English
2415 All But My Life Gerda Weissmann Klein 1957 American English
2422 Balzac Stefan Zweig 1946 Austrian German
2427 Strange Defeat Marc Bloch 1946 French French
2469 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
2473 Truman David McCullough 1992 American English
2480 Black Elk Speaks John G. Neihardt 1932 American English
2496 John Keats Walter Jackson Bate 1963 American English
2508 Diane Arbus Marvin Israel, Doon Arbus 1972 American English
2523 Microbe Hunters Paul de Kruif 1926 American English
2577 Melbourne David Cecil 1939 British English
2638 The Last Lion William Manchester 1983 American English
2639 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
2654 Memoirs of Cardinal De Retz Cardinal de Retz 1717 French French
2669 Parting the Waters Taylor Branch 1988 American English
2704 Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand 2010 American English
2731 Beethoven's Letters Ludwig van Beethoven 1866 German German
2731 Memoirs Of The Author Of A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman William Godwin 1798 British English
2731 Life Of John Sterling Thomas Carlyle 1851 British English
2754 The Passage Of Power Robert Caro 2012 American English
2833 Memoirs Of A Revolutionist Vera Figner 1920 Russian Russian
2833 The Memoirs Of Princess Dashkova Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova 1840 Russian Russian
2833 Oliver Cromwell L. du Garde Peach 1963 British English
2833 The Lives Of The Poets Samuel Johnson 1779 British English
2919 The Age of Jackson Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 1945 American English
2930 The Black Jacobins C. L. R. James 1938 British English
2945 The Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi 1986 Italian Italian
2949 The Great Bridge David McCullough 1972 American English
2961 A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz 2002 Israeli Hebrew
2976 The Big Sea Langston Hughes 1940 American English
2976 The Battle with the Slum Jacob A. Riis 1902 Danish English
2976 Thirty Years As A Slave And Four Years In The White House Elizabeth Keckley 1868 American English
2976 The Cavalry Maiden Nadezhda Durova 1836 Russian Russian
2976 The History Of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave Mary Prince 1831 British English
2976 Memoirs Of A Korean Queen Lady Hyegyeong 1795 Korean Korean
2976 Van Loon's Lives Hendrik Willem van Loon 1942 Dutch English
3067 Florence Nightingale Cecil Woodham-Smith 1950 British English
3073 Annapurna Maurice Herzog 1951 French French
3079 A Daughter Of Han Ning Lao Tai-Tai, told to Ida Pruitt 1945 Chinese English
3086 The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 Lawrence Stone 1977 British English
3130 Memories And Commentaries Igor Stravinsky 1960 Russian English
3163 Great Heart James West Davidson, John Rugge 1988 American English
3175 Lust For Life Irving Stone 1934 American English
3176 Vermeer Lawrence Gowing 1952 British English
3179 Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa Mungo Park 1799 British English
3190 Artemisia Anna Banti 1947 Italian Italian
3239 The Son of a Servant August Strindberg 1886 Swedish Swedish
3239 My Life Leon Trotsky 1930 Russian Russian
3239 The History Of The Yorubas Reverend Samuel Johnson 1921 Nigerian English
3239 The Soul of the White Ant Eugène N. Marais 1925 South African Afrikaans
3239 The Memoirs Of General Makriyannis Makriyannis 1907 Greek Greek
3239 Critical And Historical Essays Thomas Babington Macaulay 1843 British English