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
300 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
304 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
306 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
334 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
379 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
395 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
451 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
515 Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari 1550 Italian Italian
614 Facundo Domingo Faustino Sarmiento 1845 Argentinian Spanish
639 Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke 1790 British English
690 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin 1791 American English
716 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 1925 German German
788 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
851 Essays, First And Second Series Ralph Waldo Emerson 1841 American English
868 Henry James Leon Edel 1953 American English
885 A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz 2002 Israeli Hebrew
903 Wild Swans Jung Chang 1991 Chinese English
909 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
913 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 1845 American English
965 Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey 1918 British English
979 The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard 1922 British English
1007 The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs 1961 American English
1038 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
1052 Treatise on Radioactivity Marie Curie 1910 French French
1244 The Travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo 1300 Italian Old french
1257 Lives of the Caesars Suetonius 121 Roman Latin
1345 The Naked Ape Desmond Morris 1967 British English
1392 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
1406 The Life of Charlotte Brontë Elizabeth Gaskell 1857 British English
1416 Rights of Man Thomas Paine 1791 British English
1434 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
1474 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
1489 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
1542 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1575 Borstal Boy Brendan Behan 1958 Irish English
1627 Dora Bruder Patrick Modiano 1997 French French
1641 Disraeli Robert Blake 1966 British English
1762 Small Is Beautiful E. F. Schumacher 1973 British English
1817 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
1871 Brief Lives John Aubrey 1898 British English
1872 To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson 1940 American English
1893 The Soul of a New Machine Tracy Kidder 1981 American English
1901 The Power Broker Robert Caro 1974 American English
1974 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
1985 Black Elk Speaks John G. Neihardt 1932 American English
2003 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Jacobs 1861 American English
2022 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
2031 Gedanken Und Erinnerungen Otto von Bismarck 1898 German German
2160 The Immense Journey Loren Eiseley 1957 American English
2198 The Last Lion William Manchester 1983 American English
2205 The Gate of Heavenly Peace Jonathan Spence 1981 American English
2222 The Theory And Practice Of Hell Eugen Kogon 1950 German German
2338 Master of the Senate Robert Caro 2002 American English
2390 The Face of Battle John Keegan 1976 British English
2396 The Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi 1986 Italian Italian
2417 The Age of Jackson Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 1945 American English
2422 Galileo Bertolt Brecht 1938 German German
2478 Artemisia Anna Banti 1947 Italian Italian
2479 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William L. Shirer 1960 American English
2484 The Good War Studs Terkel 1984 American English
2498 The South Pole Roald Amundsen 1912 Norwegian Norwegian
2505 Memoirs of Louis XIV Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de) 1740 French French
2522 The Passage Of Power Robert Caro 2012 American English
2527 Life of Christ Giovanni Papini 1921 Italian Italian
2610 What It Takes Richard Ben Cramer 1992 American English
2673 Microbe Hunters Paul de Kruif 1926 American English
2710 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
2750 Out Of Africa Karen Blixen 1937 Danish Danish
2809 The Agony and the Ecstasy Irving Stone 1961 American English
2836 Facing Mount Kenya Jomo Kenyatta 1938 Kenyan English
2886 John Keats Walter Jackson Bate 1963 American English
2897 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
2959 Jefferson and His Time Dumas Malone 1948 American English
2990 Frederick Douglass David W. Blight 2018 American English
3073 Patrimony Philip Roth 1991 American English
3083 Diane Arbus Marvin Israel, Doon Arbus 1972 American English
3112 The Life of Andrew Jackson Marquis James 1937 American English
3139 Great Heart James West Davidson, John Rugge 1988 American English
3170 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
3174 My Early Life Winston Churchill 1930 British English
3185 The Quest For Corvo A. J. A. Symons 1934 British English
3193 The Best And The Brightest David Halberstam 1972 American English
3221 Ecce Homo Friedrich Nietzsche 1908 German German
3234 When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi 2016 American English
3241 The Great Bridge David McCullough 1972 American English
3247 Memoirs of Cardinal De Retz Cardinal de Retz 1717 French French
3248 A Distant Mirror Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1978 American English
3311 Growing Up Russell Baker 1982 American English
3391 Napoleon Emil Ludwig 1926 German German
3399 Portrait Of A Marriage Nigel Nicolson 1973 British English
3455 Profiles in Courage John F. Kennedy 1956 American English
3476 The Campaign of the Marne Sewell Tyng 1927 American English
3496 The Return Of Martin Guerre Natalie Zemon Davis 1983 Unknown English
3502 Borges Adolfo Bioy Casares 2006 Argentine Spanish
3522 Balzac Stefan Zweig 1946 Austrian German
3525 Strange Defeat Marc Bloch 1946 French French
3531 Behemoth Franz Neumann 1942 German English
3548 Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate 1977 American English
3557 The Black Jacobins C. L. R. James 1938 British English
3605 Limonov Emmanuel Carrère 2011 French French
3618 The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe 1979 American English
3638 The Battle with the Slum Jacob A. Riis 1902 Danish English
3638 Memoirs Of A Revolutionist Vera Figner 1920 Russian Russian
3638 The Memoirs Of Princess Dashkova Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova 1840 Russian Russian
3638 Van Loon's Lives Hendrik Willem van Loon 1942 Dutch English
3638 Child Of The Revolution Wolfgang Leonhard 1955 German German
3638 Out Of My Life And Thought Albert Schweitzer 1931 German German
3638 How I Found Livingstone Henry M. Stanley 1871 British English
3808 Rousseau and Revolution Will Durant, Ariel Durant 1967 American English
3834 Повесть о жизни Konstantin Paustovsky 1956 Russian Russian
3861 The History Of The Yorubas Reverend Samuel Johnson 1921 Nigerian English
3861 The Soul of the White Ant Eugène N. Marais 1925 South African Afrikaans
3920 Staying Power Peter Fryer 1984 British English
3943 A Fire on the Moon Norman Mailer 1970 American English
3947 Antériorité Des Civilisations Nègres Cheikh Anta Diop 1954 Senegalese French
3953 The Memoirs Of General Makriyannis Makriyannis 1907 Greek Greek
4061 Serengeti Shall Not Die Bernhard Grzimek 1959 German German
4067 Lives Other Than My Own Emmanuel Carrère 2009 French French
4072 Private Renaissance Maria Bellonci 1985 Italian Italian
4076 Seabiscuit Laura Hillenbrand 2001 American English