"The one essential book in the field" In this pathbreaking study, Runyan reviews and responds to major criticism of psychobiography and of the case study method, and suggests criteria for evaluating and improving in-depth studies of individual lives. Theoretical points are vividly illustrated with examples from the lives of (among others) Vincent Van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare, Malcolm X, Woodrow Wilson, Virginia Woolf, and several of Freud's classic case studies. "The most informative, clear, objective, and comprehensive book written on this topic to date. It is both the ideal text for a graduate course in psycho-history and the one essential book in the field which every library should have."--The Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

'The book is aimed mainly at graduate students, although the circle of readers undoubtedly will be much wider for this well constructed and well written work.' Acta Oecologica, Volume 13, No. 6, 1992