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Many years ago, as a young psychology undergraduate, I enjoyed the privilege of obtaining my very first paid post during a summer break. Alas, none of my psychology teachers could offer any opportunities for earning income, but, quite unexpectedly, I received an appointment as a research assistant to an esteemed musicologist who specialized in the eighteenth century. This Professor of Music kindly invited me to assist him with the research of his newly-contracted book about the work of the noted French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, who flourished during the 1730s and 1740s. Knowing of my status as a psychology student, my new boss encouraged me to read as many published texts about Rameau as possible and to prepare a very simple summary of his basic biography.
Over the next several weeks, I immersed myself deeply in the university libraries and eventually drafted a lengthy document of whatever data I could discover about Rameau's early history, which I then duly submitted to the professor. The musicologist briskly scrolled through my report, and, to my surprise, he replied, ‘Brett, why have you wasted your time exploring Rameau's childhood experiences in so much detail? I need only one or two short sentences about his early life. My readers will be interested solely in his work as a composer. No one will give a damn about his growing-up years!’
As a budding psychologist, I experienced the musicologist's reaction as quite shocking. Rather naively, perhaps, I had presumed that all biography readers would share my interest in childhood events. But, in retrospect, I should have come to appreciate that, back then, most formal volumes barely covered the early years at all.
Thankfully, since that time, as the professions of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy have developed over recent decades, virtually every biographical author has, at long last, begun to investigate the impact of infancy and childhood upon adult life with much more rigour and much more seriousness, devoting