THE BIOGRAPHER'S QUEST, based on fifty years of experience, describes how biographies are written. It reveals the excitement of the hunt and the attempt to probe the mystery of artistic creation. The life must interest readers and secure a publisher. Ideally, it should have a subject whose appeal will sustain you for several years, who is still relevant and influential, has unpublished material available in archives, family and friends to interview, and no recent competing biography. Using one's knowledge and skill to find the essential information is one of the keenest pleasures of biography. This book explains how life-writers do archival research, find new sources, and experience the thrill of constant discoveries; it also discusses how to conduct interviews by establishing confidence, asking the right questions, and persuading people to reveal what they know. Meyers describes how to create a chronology, interpret often conflicting written and spoken evidence, organize material into a meaningful pattern, and show how the author's life illuminates his work. Research can lead to some extraordinary encounters with distinguished informants. There can also be some extreme contrasts: between the collector who refused to show the only copy of Somerset Maugham's unpublished autobiography and shouted, "I curse the day you ever heard my name," to the daughter of Robert Frost's lover who was eager to reveal her secrets and declared, "I’ve been waiting all my life for you to come."