Practical problems of biographical research include issues of access and information; length and depth — do we focus, for example, only on a subject’s public life? Is it possible to understand this life adequately without taking account of other facets that shape the motives, drives and contexts which make up a human being? If the subject has been previously under-researched, is part of the job of a biographer to make that life interesting or, at least, to find out why the life is interesting? Theakston (2000: 131) noted that biography risks exaggerating a subject’s importance. Is it enough to document a public figure because they were there? Readability, reason and relevance — the three R’s of writing — are challenges that should not be overlooked. As Wear has argued: ‘the task of biography is difficult because it involves sorting through numerous accounts of the subject’s career and settling on a final version that imposes order and structure’ (Courier-Mail May 17, 2003). Rose (2000: 51) considered that biographers often under-conceptualise their subjects, treating the career of a prime minister as a ‘unique set of events, with little or no attempt to plot changes over a period of time longer than the subject’s term of office’. I would suggest that biographical writing, after intensive research, can shed light on why events occurred, the reactions of those closest to them, and provide readers with an impression of what life was like within a particular time frame. One example of this is Patrick Weller’s Malcolm Fraser PM. While the author never claimed this work was a biography, it does nevertheless shed extensive light into Fraser’s personality — someone who needed to be in control — and therefore illuminates the character perhaps more than originally intended. The book gives readers an insight into how a leader wielded power through the management and working of executive government.