In addition to her several award-winning biographies, Hermione Lee has written extensively on issues associated with life-writing.

Lee is the author of Biography: A Very Short Introduction for Oxford University Press, in which she considers the cultural and historical background of different types of biographies, looking at the factors that affect biographers and whether there are different strategies, ethics, and principles required for writing about one person compared to another. She also considers contemporary biographical publications and considers what kind of 'lives' are the most popular and in demand.

Her book Body Parts: Essays on Life-writing (published by Princeton University Press as Virginia Woolf's Nose) is a collection of essays that examines the problems of reading and writing biography and explores the relationship between biography and fiction. Looking at writer's lives in connection with their work, Lee raises profound and intriguing issues about aspects of writing and reading a life.

Lee frequently gives talks and interviews about life-writing, many of which can be found on the "Talks & Interviews" page.

In 2012 she founded OCLW, the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Wolfson College, with a programme of seminars, workshops, visiting scholars, lectures, conferences and day-schools, dealing with all genres and types of life-writing, and with connections to other centres in life-writing worldwide. For more about this program, please visit their website at https://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/oclw

Lee has participated in numerous events hosted by the OCLW, including talks and interviews available as podcasts on the OCLW website:

• Celebrity and Life-Writing: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives. Roundtable discussion featuring Hermione Lee, Philip Bullock, Ruth Scobie, and Lindsay Shapero, chaired by Sandra Mayer.
• Hermione Lee and Ray Monk in Conversation - 24 October 2013
• Hermione Lee, Opening Address, 20 September 2013 (Lives of Objects Conference)
• Edward St Aubyn in Conversation with Hermione Lee, 13 February 2014
• Alan Hollinghurst in Conversation with Hermione Lee, 7 February 2012
  

In 2020, Lee was awarded with the BIO Prize by the Biographers International Organization. Her acceptance video is below, and the text of her keynote address is available from the Biographers International Organization's website.

Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee, eds. - Lives of Houses. Princeton University Press, 2020 [paperback edition, 2021]. 304 pages. ISBN13: 9780691193663.

 

Hermione Lee - Body Parts: Essays on Life-Writing. Chatto & Windus, 2005 [reprinted 2008 by Pimlico]. 256 pages. ISBN13: 9781844137466. Published elsewhere as Virginia Woolf's Nose.

 

Hermione Lee - Biography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2009 [reprinted 2011]. 144 pages. ISBN13: 9780199533541.