John Sayer: Wolf Graf Baudissin (1789-1878). Sein Leben – seine Zeit. Ein Übersetzen (Literatur: Forschung und Wissenschaft, 34).

• Anne Baillot

Biography is a popular genre, albeit a perilous one, in which the balance between accuracy and readability is notoriously difficult to achieve. This challenge gives way to declinations ranging from the family chronicle to the fully manuscript-based account of the sum of intellectual or artistic achievements by a persona in the context of their time. Scholarly biographies, in particular, offer opportunities to shed light on personalities that have been neglected by our historical canon, and therefore think of our past not only as marked by monumental figures, but also as a field yet open to discoveries.