1 There’s Nothing Like a Bad Start in Life
Leonardo da Vinci
Charles Nicholl, Leonardo da Vinci: The Flights of the Mind (Allen Lane, 2004)
Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks (Profile, 2005)
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud,The Penguin Freud Reader, ed. Adam Phillips (Penguin, 2006)
Peter Gay, Freud: A Life in Our Time (W. W. Norton & Co., 1998)
Isaac Newton
James Gleick, Isaac Newton (Fourth Estate, 2003)
Thomas Levenson, Newton and the Counterfeiter (Faber, 2009)
Oliver Heaviside
Basil Mahon, Oliver Heaviside: Maverick Mastermind of Electricity (Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2009)
Paul J. Nahin, Oliver Heaviside: The Life, Work and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age, new ed. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)
Lord Byron
Ashley Hay, The Secret: The Strange Marriage of Annabella Milbanke and Lord Byron (Aurum, 2001)
Fiona McCarthy, Byron: Life & Legend (Faber, 2003)
Ada Lovelace
Betty O’Toole, Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron’s Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer (Pickering & Chatto, 1992)
Benjamin Woolley, The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason and Byron’s Daughter (Macmillan, 1999)
Hans Christian Andersen
Jens Andersen, Hans Christian Andersen (Duckworth, 2005)
Jackie Wullschlager, Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller (Allen Lane, 2000)
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, tr. Haakon Chevalier (Dover Publications, 2009)
Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí (Faber, 1997)
2 Happy-go-lucky
Epicurus
Epicurus, The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia, tr. Brad Inwood and Lloyd P. Gerson (Hackett Publishing Co., 1994)
Benjamin Franklin
H. W. Brands, The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (Doubleday, 2000)
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography & Other Writings, ed. Ormond Seavey (Oxford, 1993)
Edward Jenner
John Baron, The Life of Edward Jenner (London, 1827)
Richard B. Fisher, Edward Jenner 1749–1823 (André Deutsch, 1991)
Mary Seacole
Jane Robinson, Mary Seacole: The Charismatic Black Nurse Who Became a Heroine of the Crimea (Constable & Robinson, 2005)
Mary Seacole, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, new ed. (Penguin, 2005)
Moll Cutpurse
R. Sanders, Newgate Calendar or Malefactor’s Bloody Register (London, 1760)
Janet Todd and Elizabeth Spearing, Counterfeit Ladies (New York University Press, 1994)
Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman, Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character (W. W. Norton & Co., 1985)
James Gleick, Genius: Richard Feynman & Modern Physics (Little, Brown, 1992)
Richard Leighton, Tuva or Bust!: Richard Feynman’s Last Journey (W. W. Norton & Co., 1991)
3 Driven
Robert E. Peary
Fergus Fleming, Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole (Granta, 2001)
Jean Malaurie, Ultima Thule: Explorers and Natives in the Polar North (W. W. Norton & Co., 2003)
Josephine Peary, My Arctic Journal: A Year among Ice-fields and Eskimos, new ed. (Cooper Square Press, 2002)
Mary Kingsley
Dea Birkett, Mary Kingsley: Imperial Adventuress (Palgrave Macmillan, 1992)
Katherine Frank, Voyager Out: The Life of Mary Kingsley (Houghton Mifflin, 1986)
Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, new ed. (National Geographic, 2002)
Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt, Personal Narrative: Of a Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, new ed. (abridged), tr. Jason Wilson (Penguin, 2006)
N. A. Rupke, Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography (Chicago University Press, 2008)
Francis Galton
Martin Brookes, Extreme Measures: The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton (Bloomsbury, 2004)
Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences, new ed. (Prometheus, 2005)
William Morris
Fiona McCarthy, William Morris (Faber, 1994)
William Morris, News from Nowhere & Other Writings, new ed. (Penguin, 2004)
4 Let’s Do It
Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Casanova, The Story of My Life, new ed. tr. Stephanie Sartarelli and Sophia Hawkes (Penguin, 2002)
Ian Kelly, Casanova: Actor, Spy, Lover, Priest (Hodder, 2008)
Catherine the Great
Simon Dixon, Catherine the Great (Profile Books, 2009)
Virginia Rounding, Catherine the Great: Love, Sex and Power (Hutchinson, 2006)
Cora Pearl
Katie Hickman, Courtesans (HarperCollins, 2003)
Cora Pearl, The Memoirs of Cora Pearl: The Erotic Reminiscences of a Flamboyant Nineteenth-century Courtesan, ed. William Blatchford (Granada, 1983)
Virginia Rounding, Grandes Horizontales: The Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth-Century Courtesans (Bloomsbury, 2003)
H. G. Wells
Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie, H. G. Wells: A Biography (Simon & Schuster, 1973)
H. G. Wells, H. G. Wells in Love: Postscript to an Experiment in Autobiography, new ed. (Faber, 2008)
Colette
Colette, Cheri, new ed. (Vintage, 2001)
Judith Thurman, Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette (Bloomsbury, 1999)
Marie Bonaparte
Celia Bertin, Marie Bonaparte: A Life (Harcourt, 1982)
Alfred Kinsey
Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, Sex the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey (Chatto & Windus, 1998)
Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, ed. Alfred C. Kinsey (W. B. Saunders, 1948)
Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, ed. Alfred C. Kinsey (W. B. Saunders, 1953)
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead, My Autobiography, new ed. (University Press of Mississippi, 2008)
David Bret, Tallulah Bankhead: A Scandalous Life (Robson, 1996)
5 Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone
Helena, Comtesse de Noailles
Catherine Caufield, The Emperor of the United States of America & Other Magnificent British Eccentrics (Routledge, 1981)
George Fordyce
Clarke, The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the Most Eminent Persons, who Have Flourished in Great Britain (London, 1832)
John Cordy Jeaffreson, A Book about Doctors (London, 1860)
Elizabeth, Empress of Austria
Joan Haslip, The Lonely Empress: Elizabeth of Austria (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965)
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg
T. Coraghessan Boyle, The Road to Wellville: A Comedy of the Heart & Other Organs (Little, Brown, 1981)
Henry Ford
Henry Ford, My Life & Work (NuVision Publications, 2007)
Steven Watts, The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford & the American Century (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005)
Howard Hughes
Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske, Howard Hughes: The Untold Story (Little, Brown, 1996)
Howard Hughes, The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters, ed. Richard Hack, (New Millenium Press, 2001)
6 Grin and Bear It
Pieter Stuyvesant
Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World (Doubleday, 2004)
General Antonio López de Santa Anna
Will Fowler, Santa Anna of Mexico (University of Nebraska Press, 2008)
Daniel Lambert
Jan Bondeson, The Pig-faced Lady of Manchester Square & Other Medical Marvels (Tempus, 2004)
Florence Nightingale
Mark Bostridge, Florence Nightingale: The Woman & her Legend (Viking, 2008)
Florence Nightingale, Florence Nightingale’s Suggestions for Thought (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005)
Hugh Small, Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel (Constable & Robinson, 1999)
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, tr. Richard Zenith (Penguin, 2002)
Fernando Pessoa, The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa, tr. Richard Zenith (Grove Atlantic, 2002)
Dawn Langley Simmons
Dawn Langley Simmons, Dawn: A Charleston Legend (Wyrick & Co., 1995)
7 The Monkey Keepers
Oliver Cromwell
Antonia Fraser, Cromwell, Our Chief of Men (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997)
H. E. Marshall, Through Great Britain & Ireland with Cromwell (London, 1912)
Catherine de’ Medici
Leonie Frieda, Catherine de’ Medici (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004)
Sir Jeffrey Hudson
Nick Page, Lord Minimus: The Extraordinary Life of Britain’s Smallest Man (St. Martin’s Press, 2002)
Rembrandt van Rijn
Charles Fowkes, The Life of Rembrandt (London, 1978)
Gary Schwartz, Rembrandt’s Universe (Thames & Hudson, 2006)
Frida Kahlo
Hayden Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (Harper & Row, 1983)
Andrea Kettenmann, Frida Kahlo, 1907–1954: Pain and Passion (Taschen, 2000)
Madame Mao
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (Jonathan Cape, 2005)
Ross Terrill, Madame Mao: The White-boned Demon (Stanford UP, 1999)
Frank Buckland
G. Frank Buckland, Curiosities of Natural History (London, 1859)
Frank Buckland, Curious Men (MacSweeneys, 2008)
H. O. Burgess, Curious Ark: The Curious World of Frank Buckland (New York, 1967)
King Alexander I of Greece
John Van der Kiste, Kings of the Hellenes: The Greek Kings, 1863–1974 (Alan Sutton, 1994)
8 Who Do You Think You Are?
Titus Oates
John Kenyon, The Popish Plot (Heinemann, 1972)
Alessandro, Count Cagliostro
Philippa Faulks and Robert D. L. Cooper, The Masonic Magician: The Life and Death of Count Cagliostro and his Egyptian Rite (Watkins, 2008)
Iain McCalman, The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro (Random House, 2004)
George Psalmanazar
Michael Keevak, The Pretended Asian: George Psalmanazar’s Eighteenth-Century Formosan Hoax (Wayne State University Press, 2001)
Princess Caraboo
Jennifer Raison and Michael Goldie, Caraboo: The Servant Girl Princess (Windrush, 1994)
Louis de Rougemont
Louis de Rougemont, The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (Dodo Press, 2009)
James Barry
Rachel Holmes, Scanty Particulars: The Life of Dr. James Barry (Viking, 2002)
Ignácz Trebitsch Lincoln
Bernard Wasserstein, The Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincoln (Yale, 1988)
Tuesday Lobsang Rampa
T. Lobsang Rampa, Living with the Lama (Random House, 1964)
T. Lobsang Rampa, The Third Eye (Random House, 1956)
Sheelagh Rouse, Twenty-Five Years with T. Lobsang Rampa (Lulu.com, 2006)
Archibald Belaney
Lovat Dickson, Wilderness Man: The Amazing True Story of Grey Owl, new ed. (Pocket Books, 1999)
Armand G. Ruffo, Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney (Coteau Books, 2003)
9 Once You’re Dead, You’re Made for Life
Emma Hamilton
Flora Fraser, Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986)
Kate Williams, England’s Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (Hutchinson, 2006)
Dr. John Dee
John Dee, The Diaries of John Dee, ed. Edward Fenton (Day Books, 1998)
Deborah E. Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature (Cambridge, 2006)
Benjamin Woolley, The Queen’s Conjuror: The Science and Magic of Doctor Dee (HarperCollins, 2001)
Jack Parsons
John Carter, Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons (Feral House, 2005)
George Pendle, Strange Angel (Harcourt, 2005)
Nikola Tesla
Robert Lomas, The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century (Headline, 2000)
Marc J. Seifer, Wizard: The Life & Times of Nikola Tesla (Citadel Press, 1998)
Karl Marx
Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed. David McLellan (Oxford, 2000)
Francis Wheen, Karl Marx (Fourth Estate, 1999)
10 Is That All There Is?
St. Cuthbert
The Venerable Bede, The Age of Bede, ed. D. H. Farmer (Penguin, 2004)
Ann Lee
Richard Francis, Ann the Word: The Story of Ann Lee (Arcade, 2000)
William Blake
Peter Ackroyd, Blake (Sinclair Stevenson, 1995)
William Blake, The Poetry & Prose of William Blake, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London, 1927)
Marsha Keith Schuchard, Why Mrs. Blake Cried (Century, 2006)
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism & Other Essays, ed. Alan Ryan (Penguin, 2004)
Leslie Stephen, The Utilitarians (London, 1900)
Richard Buckminster Fuller
J. Baldwin, Bucky Works: Buckminster Fuller’s Ideas for Today (J. Wiley & Sons, 1996)
R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (Lars Müller Publishers, 2008)