Memoir examples: 11 well-known memoirs, how each one is built, and what to borrow for yours
A memoir is a true story from your own memory, usually about one period, theme or relationship rather than a whole life. The best way to see what that means is to look at memoirs that worked. Here are 11, from the 1700s to the last decade, with what each covers, how it is shaped and the one thing to borrow for yours.
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What makes a book a memoir
Wikipedia's summary of the genre puts it simply: a memoir is nonfiction based on the author's personal memories, and while an autobiography tells the story of a life, a memoir usually has a narrower focus, such as one period of someone's life or career. Our guide to writing an autobiography explains why the label matters less than the reader. What every example below shares is a clear subject: the reader knows early on what the story is about.
11 memoir examples
| Memoir | What it covers | What to borrow |
|---|---|---|
| The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (written 1771 to 1790) | Franklin's own record of his life, left unfinished. He seems to have called it his Memoirs. | Write to a real person. Franklin opens with a letter to his son. |
| Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) | Douglass's life in slavery and his escape, written as a memoir and an argument for abolition. | Let your story make a case. Every scene serves the larger point. |
| The Story of My Life, Helen Keller (1903) | Her early life, especially her years with her teacher Anne Sullivan. | Build around one relationship that changed everything. |
| Night, Elie Wiesel (1956) | His experiences with his father in the Nazi camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, 1944 to 1945. | A short book can carry great weight. Tell only what the story needs. |
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou (1969) | Her childhood and youth; the first of seven volumes about her life. | You do not have to fit your life into one book. One period per book is enough. |
| Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996) | His childhood in Brooklyn and, mostly, in Limerick, Ireland: poverty and his father's drinking. | A strong sense of place can hold a whole book together. |
| The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2005) | Her nomadic, unstable upbringing and her path to a journalism career in New York. | Write about difficult people fairly. Show the love alongside the damage. |
| Just Kids, Patti Smith (2010) | Her relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. | A memoir can be about someone else, seen through you. |
| When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi (2016) | A neurosurgeon's life and his illness with stage IV lung cancer; published after his death. | Organize around the question you are living with. |
| Born a Crime, Trevor Noah (2016) | His childhood in South Africa under apartheid, born to parents whose relationship was illegal. | Humor and hard truth can sit on the same page. Stories as chapters work well. |
| Educated, Tara Westover (2018) | Growing up in an isolated family in rural Idaho with no formal schooling, through to a PhD at Cambridge. | A clear before and after gives the reader a reason to keep going. |
Facts from each book's Wikipedia summary, read November 2, 2026. The "what to borrow" notes are Scribe Media's own reading.
Three classic memoir openings
These three are in the public domain, so we can quote their first lines from the Project Gutenberg editions. Each shows a different way in.
- Start with the facts, then the wound. Douglass: "I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland." His next sentence is that he has no accurate knowledge of his age, and the book's argument begins.
- Start with how it feels to tell it. Keller: "It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life." She admits the difficulty and draws the reader in.
- Start by speaking to someone. Franklin: "Dear Son: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of my ancestors." The book becomes a letter, and the reader listens in.
What the best memoirs have in common
- One subject. Not a whole life, but a period, a relationship or a question.
- A change. The narrator at the end is not the narrator at the start.
- Scenes, not summary. Specific places, people and moments, told as stories.
- Honesty about the narrator. The author's own mistakes are on the page too.
How to use these examples for your own
- Pick the one closest to your story from the table, and write down what it is about in one sentence. Then write the same sentence for yours.
- Choose your shape: in order, by theme, or opening on a turning point and going back.
- List the stories that serve your sentence. The life story interview questions will bring back ones you have forgotten.
- Tell them out loud. Record one story at a time, alone or with someone asking questions; see how to talk your book out.
- Turn the transcript into prose. How to turn a transcript into a chapter walks through the edits.
Start here: finish the sentence "My memoir is about ___, and by the end I ___." Then record yourself telling the first story that sentence calls for.
Common questions
What is an example of a memoir?
Educated by Tara Westover (2018) is a well-known recent one: it follows her from an isolated childhood in rural Idaho, with no formal schooling, to a PhD at the University of Cambridge. Older examples include Frederick Douglass's Narrative (1845) and Helen Keller's The Story of My Life (1903).
What is the difference between a memoir and an autobiography?
The usual distinction is focus. An autobiography tells the story of a life; a memoir usually tells the story of one period, theme or relationship within a life. In practice the labels overlap, and readers care more about whether the story holds them than what it is called.
Does a memoir have to be about something dramatic?
No. The memoirs that last are built around one question or change, and that can be a quiet one: a relationship, a place, a decision. What matters is that the reader knows what the story is about and wants to see how it turns out.
How long is a memoir?
It varies widely. Some of the examples here are short enough to read in an evening and others run to several hundred pages. Decide what the story needs, then cut anything that does not serve it.
Can I write a memoir if I am not a writer?
Yes. Many people tell their stories better out loud than on a blank page. Record yourself telling one story at a time, or have someone interview you, then turn the transcript into prose.
Sources: Wikipedia summaries of Memoir (definition; narrower focus than autobiography) and of each book listed, read November 2, 2026. Opening lines quoted from the Project Gutenberg editions of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, The Story of My Life and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, read November 2, 2026. No text from books still in copyright is quoted. The "what to borrow" notes and guidance were written by Scribe Media. Published by Scribe Media.