SOURCE: Horne, Philip. “Revealers and Concealers.” Essays in Criticism 43, no. 4 (October 1993): 273-83.

In the following review, Horne asserts that Hamilton's Keepers of the Flame and In Search of J. D. Salinger address ongoing debates over intellectual property rights and other ethical issues surrounding literary biography.

Beginning his admirable recent book about the history and ethics of literary biography, Ian Hamilton lays out, very usefully, the deadeningly stereotyped oppositional lines of argument, the tired steps it is pointless merely to repeat:

Sometimes, arguing about biography is like arguing about abortion or capital punishment: minds tend to be made up before you start. There are revealers and there are concealers. The agents of reticence have no truck with the agents of disclosure. Privacy is sacred, the public has a right to know.

(Keepers of the Flame: Literary Estates and the Rise of Biography, 1992, p. vii).

How far biographical investigation, of...