Literary biographies and other works on literary history -- as opposed to literary criticism.
Cross-references to my other topical lists, as always, marked with the addition "cf."
LITERARY HISTORY
Stanley Wells:
* Shakespeare: For All Time
* Shakespeare: A Life in Drama
* Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide
* The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare
* Shakespeare and Co.: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Johnson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and the Other Players in His Story
* Coffee with Shakespeare
* Is It True What They Say About Shakespeare?
-- for all, cf. list no. 1, "Bulk Entries and Basics"
* Samuel Schoenbaum: Shakespeare: A Documentary Life
* Peter Ackroyd: Shakespeare: The Biography
* Stephen Greenblatt: Will in the World
* Anthony Burgess: Shakespeare
* Michael Wood: Shakespeare
* Bill Bryson: Shakespeare
* Tarnya Cooper, Stanley Wells et al.: Searching for Shakespeare
* James Shapiro: Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
* Marchette Chute: Geoffrey Chaucer of England
* Claire Tomalin: Jane Austen: A Life
-- cf. list no. 2, "Women's History"
* Elizabeth Gaskell: The Life of Charlotte Brontë
-- cf. list no. 2, "Women's History"
* A.S. Byatt: Unruly Times: Wordsworth and Coleridge in Their Time
* Edna O'Brien: James Joyce and Byron in Love
* Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own
-- cf. list no. 2, "Women's History"
* The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist and Barbara Reynolds: Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul
-- cf. lists nos. 2 & 3, "Women's History" and "First Hand Accounts"
* Agatha Christie: An Autobiography
-- cf. lists nos. 2 & 3, "Women's History" and "First Hand Accounts"
* Martin Edwards: The Golden Age of Murder and The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books
* Anna Quindlen: Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City
-- cf. list no. 8, "At Home and Abroad"
* Thomas Mann: Über mich selbst: Autobiographische Schriften
-- cf. list no. 3, "First Hand Accounts"
* Doris & Arnold E. Maurer: Bonn erzählt: Streifzüge durch das literarische Bonn von 1780 - 1980
(Unfortunately not translated into English. The title translates approximately as "Bonn narrates: Forays into Bonn's Literary Life, 1780-1980". Cf. list no. 8, "At Home and Abroad")
* Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature
* The Smithsonian Book of Books
CULTURAL HISTORY
* Hugh Honour & John Fleming: A World History of Art
* Charles Quest-Ritson: The English Garden: A Social History
* Jackie Bennett & Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: Shakespeare's Gardens
* Beatrice Hohenegger: Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West
* Carl Van Vechten: The Tiger in the House: A Cultural History of the Cat
* Howard Koch: Casablanca: Script and Legend
* Eddie Muller: Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir