Ronald Hayman is one of the most prolific literary biographers of the late twentieth century. His body of critical writing, encompassing an almost overwhelming variety of subject matter, defies simple categorization. Hayman has produced full-length biographies on Antonin Artaud, the Marquis de Sade, Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marcel Proust, Sylvia Plath, Tennessee Williams, and, most recently, Thomas Mann, as well as shorter works on contemporary dramatists and other literary figures and theoretical works on theater, acting, and literary criticism. Perhaps the best assessment of his work is that, over a career spanning more than twenty-five years, Hayman has established himself as one of the premier "professional" literary biographers of the late twentieth century.

Ronald Hayman was born in Bournemouth, Hampshire, England, on 4 May 1932, the son of John and Sadie Hayman. Following a one-year tour of duty in the Royal Air Force (1950-1951), Hayman received...