The author compares biographical sketches from different epochs, as well as biographies and autobiographies of famous persons, such as St. Augustine, Benvenuto Cellini, Samuel Johnson, and Eugene O'Neill. He shows how, even before Freud, early biographers used many "Freudian" insights, albeit in a disorganized fashion. With the advent of psychoanalysis, biographies are seen to be greatly enriched by psychoanalytic insights and experience. The author states, "Though I believe the paths of biography and psychoanalysis intersect, they do not and should not converge. The great biographers of the past created their masterworks from a unity of knowledge which they then shared with the reader." One must recognize that psychoanalysis considers not only the psychoanalytic importance of the biography itself, but also the psychoanalytic insights of the biographer. Thus different biographers will select different emphases for the development of their themes.