Richard Ellmann

Ellmann's James Joyce, first published in 1959, is often called the greatest literary biography of its century, and the reason is its method: he tracked down Joyce's siblings, friends and Dublin acquaintances and showed, street by street, how real people and incidents went into Ulysses and Dubliners. After it, Joyce looked less like an aloof experimenter and more like a funny, impoverished family man transforming his own life. His Oscar Wilde, published shortly after his death in 1987, is warmer still, though some details have since been corrected.