The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional and usually entertaining account of a person's life. This kind of novel concentrates on the experiences a person had during his lifetime, the people he met and the incidents which occurred are detailed and sometimes trimmings are done to give it the appearance of a novel. Names and accounts may be changed as and when necessary. A very good example of this kind is Goldsmith's "The Vicar of Wakefield" and is believed to be the biography of a person the author had known and observed very closely. Even Addison's The Spectator is said to have characters he had known.

Noted biographical novels

• The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961) by Irving Stone
  Irving Stone
  Irving Stone was an American writer known for his biographical novels of famous historical personalities, including Lust for Life, a biographical novel about the life of Vincent van Gogh, and The Agony and the Ecstasy, a biographical novel about Michelangelo.-Biography:In...
  
   - Michelangelo
  Michelangelo
  Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
  
  

Films based on biographical novels

• The Agony and the Ecstasy
  The Agony and the Ecstasy (film)
  The Agony and the Ecstasy is a 1965 film directed by Carol Reed, starring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II. The film was partly based on Irving Stone's biographical novel of the same name. This film deals with the conflicts of Michelangelo and Pope Julius II...
  
  (1965)

See also

• Biopic
• Biography in literature
  Biography in literature
  When studying literature, biography and its relationship to literature is often a subject of literary criticism, and is treated in several different forms...
  
  
• Historical novel
  Historical novel
  According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...