The work was characterized by Edward Bernstein, an early and sympathetic biographer, as awkward and prone to excessive oratory - unsuited for the stage despite several effective scenes.

To be sure, notable public figures often choose sympathetic biographers, and writers frequently profile people they admire.

Though Mr. Treglown is an impressively literate, sympathetic and intelligent biographer, he cannot disguise the essential lack of fire in Henry's early years.

Even his best and most sympathetic biographer, Robert K. Murray, in "The Harding Era" (1969), had to conclude that the man should never have been President.

Such is the volume of self-analysis that Peter Parker, a decent and sympathetic biographer, spends most of his 400-plus pages locked in a nervous struggle to find something new to say.

(Horowitz, a wholly sympathetic biographer, heard that Friedan accused him privately of Red-baiting.)

And even Mr. Savimbi's sympathetic biographer, British journalist Fred Bridgland, has become disillusioned.

Although 'Tired and Emotional' is a good (if frequently embarrassing) read, George Brown still awaits a truly sympathetic biographer.

London's Financial Times wrote, "Tipton may have spent his life fearing exposure, but he/she could not have wished for a more perceptive or sympathetic biographer than Middlebrook."

As editor, he then made what Robert Newman, a sympathetic biographer, called "the most serious error of his career."