This addition to the acclaimed New Critical Idiom series offers a wide-ranging introduction to the study of autobiography and a historical overview of autobiographical writing from St Augustine to the present day.Autobiography follows the important developments in autobiographical criticism in the last thirty years, paying particular attention to psychoanalytic, poststructualist and feminist approaches. Autobiography:* outlines the main theoretical issues and concepts of this area* looks at the different forms from confessions to narratives to memoirs to diaries* considers the major writers of this tradition* looks at the ideological assumptions about the nature of the self.