Biography

Feminist biographical theory emphasizes the importance of ordinary women's lives, the "domestic density" of extraordinary women's lives, and, perhaps most important, the reciprocal relationship between a biographer and her subject-a relationship that has been compared with friendship and even mother-hood. Four recent biographies of nineteenth-century feminist Margaret Fuller-two written for adults and two for young people-exemplify the problems that feminist theory can help resolve and the insights to which it can lead.