The library at the school I teach at is 'updating' its collection. This has been a goldmine for me as they make room on the shelves. The other day I picked up a slim volume entitled, "The Writing of Biography" by Catherine Drinker Bowen. The author has just completed a biography of John Adams and in 31 pages details how she went about her research and writing. One passage, true in her day (1950), may not (?) be true for many academic historians today:
While the biographer reads, he is actually in process of compostion; he recites passages to friends on the telephone; he talks continually about his great discovery. In this process of research, he employs no helpers, no apprentices, no Ph.D. students to do his reading for him, nor even his filing. It would be too dangerous; something vital might be missed. Painting a potrait, does the artist hire an apprentice to choose his colors, to decide the pose in which the subject will sit, or the texture of the frame in which the portrait will hang?
To be continued.....
Oremus pro invicem!
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