Literary Nonfiction. An exploration into the art of literary biography by one of the most important literary critics of the twentieth century. This book is part memoir, part detective story, part literary analysis, part quest for the broadest and deepest insights. Throughout, the style is graceful and accessible, free of critical or theoretical jargon. Here, the biographer of Conrad, Kafka, Faulkner, and George Eliot reveals how the lives of the great literary figures are told. Frederick Karl is the author of four biographies as well as several volumes of literary criticism, among them American Fictions: 1940-1980. He is the generaleditor of The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, five volumes of which have appeared.