A review of the collective monograph by researchers of the A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the RAS into the origins and evolution of the biography as a genre. The first section of the book discusses composing a writer’s biography with the examples of Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson, the myth and the truth in Camões’ biography, as well as the specific features of this genre in the Latin American tradition. The second section of the monograph covers the history of the genre in Russia. Here, the authors discuss a wide range of problems, from the historical and cultural context of Simeon Polotsky’s biography to attempts of the genre’s theoretical interpretation. Also considered is P. Furman’s project, a series of biographies adapted for children’s reading. The third section focuses on documents at the source of poets’ biographies, criminal proceedings of the Decembrists, and case files of our contemporaries who fell victim of the Stalin terror.