Chapter 6. Curll was responsible for up to forty self-standing biographies. His productions are compared with those of the major varieties of biography, ancient and modern. Typical subjects such as authors, physicians and politicians are identified, to illustrate the spread of his interests in the form. He produced works of collective biography, in the wake of writers such as the antiquarian John Le Neve (1679–1741). Eight frequent components are described, including official documents and wills. The second half of the chapter is devoted to a range of paratextual devices, as most notably described by Gérard Genette. Then come discussion of their aims, such as to convey an impression that this book is authoritative, up to date, objective, and full of novel content (it is rare for the books to achieve these goals to any great extent). Representative volumes are considered to demonstrate the limitations of Curll’s practice, in particular the more broken-backed items such as the life of the actor Robert Wilks (1732), memorably stripped apart in the Grub-street Journal.