Editing Autobiography (section)

=== Early autobiographies ===
[[File:Baburnama.jpg|thumb|right|upright|A scene from the ''[[Baburnama]]'']]

In the 15th century, [[Leonor López de Córdoba]], a Spanish noblewoman, wrote her ''Memorias'', which may be the first autobiography in [[Spanish language|Castillian]].

[[Babur|Zāhir ud-Dīn Mohammad Bābur]], who founded the [[Mughal Empire|Mughal dynasty]] of [[South Asia]] kept a journal ''[[Baburnama|Bāburnāma]]'' ([[Chagatai language|Chagatai]]/{{langx|fa|بابر نامہ}}; literally: ''"Book of Babur"'' or ''"Letters of Babur"'') which was written between 1493 and 1529.

One of the first great autobiographies of the [[Renaissance]] is that of the sculptor and goldsmith [[Benvenuto Cellini]] (1500–1571), written between 1556 and 1558, and entitled by him simply ''Vita'' ([[Italian language|Italian]]: ''Life''). He declares at the start: "No matter what sort he is, everyone who has to his credit what are or really seem great achievements, if he cares for truth and goodness, ought to write the story of his own life in his own hand; but no one should venture on such a splendid undertaking before he is over forty."<ref>Benvenuto Cellini, tr. George Bull, ''The Autobiography'', London 1966 p.&nbsp;15.</ref> These criteria for autobiography generally persisted until recent times, and most serious autobiographies of the next three hundred years conformed to them.

Another autobiography of the period is ''De vita propria'', by the Italian mathematician, physician and astrologer [[Gerolamo Cardano]] (1574).

One of the first autobiographies written in an [[Languages of India|Indian language]] was ''Ardhakathānaka'', written by [[Banarasidas]], who was a [[Shrimal Jain]] businessman and poet of [[Mughal India]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vanina |first=Eugenia |date=1995 |title=The "Ardhakathanaka" by Banarasi Das: A Socio-Cultural Study |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25183003 |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=211–224 |doi=10.1017/S1356186300015352 |jstor=25183003 |s2cid=164014497 |issn=1356-1863}}</ref> The poetic autobiography ''Ardhakathānaka'' (The Half Story), was composed in [[Braj Bhasa]], an early dialect of [[Hindi]] linked with the region around [[Mathura, Uttar Pradesh|Mathura]].In his autobiography, he describes his transition from an unruly youth, to a religious realization by the time the work was composed.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Orsini |first1=Francesca |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P0SlCgAAQBAJ |title=Tellings and Texts: Music, Literature and Performance in North India |last2=Schofield |first2=Katherine Butler |date=2015-10-05 |publisher=Open Book Publishers |isbn=978-1-78374-102-1 |language=ar}}</ref> The work also is notable for many details of life in Mughal times.

The earliest known autobiography written in English is the [[The Book of Margery Kempe|''Book of Margery Kempe'']], written in 1438.<ref name="Kempe, Margery, approximately 1373- 1985">{{Cite book|title=The book of Margery Kempe|last=Kempe, Margery, approximately 1373-|date=1985|publisher=Penguin|isbn=0140432515|location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England|oclc=13462336|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/bookofmargeryke000kemp}}</ref> Following in the earlier tradition of a life story told as an act of Christian witness, the book describes [[Margery Kempe]]'s pilgrimages to the [[Holy Land]] and [[Rome]], her attempts to negotiate a celibate marriage with her husband, and most of all her religious experiences as a Christian mystic. Extracts from the book were published in the early sixteenth century but the whole text was published for the first time only in 1936.<ref name="Kempe, Margery, approximately 1373- 1985"/>

Possibly the first publicly available autobiography written in English was Captain John Smith's autobiography published in 1630<ref>''The True Travels, Adventures and Observations of Captain John Smith into Europe, Aisa, Africa and America from Anno Domini 1593 to 1629''</ref> which was regarded by many as not much more than a collection of tall tales told by someone of doubtful veracity. This changed with the publication of Philip Barbour's definitive biography in 1964 which, amongst other things, established independent factual bases for many of Smith's "tall tales", many of which could not have been known by Smith at the time of writing unless he was actually present at the events recounted.<ref>Barbour, Philip L. (1964). ''The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith'', Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.</ref>

Other notable English autobiographies of the 17th century include those of [[Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury|Lord Herbert of Cherbury]] (1643, published 1764) and [[John Bunyan]] (''[[Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners]]'', 1666).

[[Jarena Lee]] (1783–1864) was the first African American woman to have a published biography in the United States.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jrirQL5L0xgC|title=Doers of the Word: African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830-1880)|last=Peterson|first=Carla L.|date=1998|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=9780813525143|language=en}}</ref>