This collection of essays focuses on two specific areas: the men and women who earned a living in the production and distribution of books and serials; and how biographies of a widening range of individuals became one of the staples of the business of publishing. The contributors show the development of biography as a published genre from medieval accounts of saints to 17th-century collectors as national worthies, through to the present-day production of the multi-volume DNB (Dictionary of National Biography).