Adam C. Begley[1] (born 1959 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American biographer. He was the books editor for The New York Observer from 1996 to 2009.[2]
Begley is the son of Sally (Higginson) and novelist Louis Begley. He graduated from Harvard College in 1982, and from Stanford University with a Ph.D. in English and American literature in 1989. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian,[3] The Times Literary Supplement,[4] The Spectator,[5] and The Atlantic.[6]
He lives with his wife, Anne Cotton, in Great Gidding, Cambridgeshire. His stepdaughter is the novelist and art critic, Chloë Ashby. He is the author of biographies of John Updike[7] and the 19th-century French photographer Nadar. His biography of Harry Houdini appeared in the Yale Jewish Lives series. He is a frequent contributor to the Paris Review's Art of Fiction series. He is currently at work on a book about Harvard College.[8]