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Autobiography vs Memoir
What is the difference between an autobiography and a memoir? I have to confess when this came up in a recent conversation I didn’t really know the answer off the top of my head. There was some speculation about how a memoir is more about a particular time or period in someone’s life and an autobiography is more about a full lifetime. There was also some talk about a memoir perhaps embellishing a little bit while an autobiography is more "just the facts, ma’am." That all sounded good, so we dropped at that. But I did make a note to myself to see if I could find a slightly more definitive answer. I went to the Oxford English Dictionary to see if there was a clear difference in definitions. I found the following: Autobiography: The writing of one’s own history; the story of one’s life written by himself. Memoir: A person’s written account of incidents in his own life, the persons whom he has known, and the transactions or movements in which he has been concerned; an autobiographical record. No real help. I dug a little deeper to see what else I could find. The folks at Writer’s Digest, producers of the magazine of the same name and of the respected reference resource Writer’s Marker, describe the difference from a publishers perspective in the following way: "An autobiography focuses on the chronology of the writer’s entire life while a memoir covers one specific aspect of the writer’s life. So, if I chose to write about my complete life up to this point—including growing up in Cincinnati, my time in New York, the few years I spent in Chicago and eventually landing at Writer’s Digest—I’d write an autobiography. If wrote a book about the winter of my sophomore year in high school where I got my tongue stuck to an icy pole, I’d write a memoir." I then saw a couple explanations from writing instructors stating autobiographies generally follow a more prescribed structure starting with earliest memories and continuing on chronologically. Memoirs can move back and forth in time through a person’s life only highlighting the periods that relate to the specific theme of the work. An additional, although less authoritative, response to this question also focused the reason for writing stating that autobiographies are written by famous people informing fans about their early life. Memoirs on the other hand can be written by any Tom, Dick, and Harry with something interesting to share. And finally Ariel Gore, an author who visited our library earlier this year, summed it up quite nicely with her statement, "A memoir is to a journalistic autobiography as a movie "based on real life events" is to a documentary." Although the OED and other dictionaries may not be very clear about differences; writers, publishers, and readers seem to have worked it out just fine.
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