Boston College Law School Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School Boston College Law School Faculty Papers 1-1-1992 The hrS inking Back: The Law of Biography Mary Sarah Bilder Boston College Law School,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/lsfp Part of the Biography Commons, Intellectual Property Commons, Law and Society Commons, and the Legal Writing and Research Commons Recommended Citation Mary Sarah Bilder. "The hrS inking Back: The Law of Biography." Stanford Law Review 43, (1992): 299-360. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Boston College Law School Faculty Papers by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Shrinking Back: The Law of Biography Mary Sarah Bilder* I. INTRODUCTION We should all be ready to say that if the secrets ofour daily lives and inner souls may instruct other surviving souls, let them be open to men hereafter, even as they are to God now. .. Not that I do not intimately understand the shrinking back from the idea of publicity on any terms-not that I would not myself destroy papers of mine which were sacred to me for per sonal reasons-but then I never would call this natural weakness, virtue nor would I, as a teacher ofthe public, announce it and attempt to justify it as an example to other minds and acts, I hope. 1 Elizabeth Barrett Browning would not be pleased with the law ofbiogra phy.