Biography sentence starters

A biography is writing about someone’s life. If someone is writing about their own life it becomes an autobiography. Biography and autobiography might focus on a specific part of someone’s life and experiences.

A biography is usually written both to inform and to entertain. This means it is a mix of factual information and creative writing. Often biographies are of famous people, eg singers, models or sports personalities. However, sometimes biographies of ordinary people who aren’t well known can be interesting because of an extraordinary experience that they’ve had, such as surviving against the odds or doing something heroic.

This is the opening paragraph of Claire Tomalin’s biography of Charles Dickens, the novelist. The young man she is describing is Dickens, aged 37.

14 January 1840, London. An inquest is being held at Marylebone Workhouse, a muddled complex of buildings spread over a large area between the Marylebone Road and Paddington Street. The Beadle, a parish officer responsible for persuading householders to do

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