The Differences Between a Biography and an Autobiography

Sometimes, you see covers of a real life story that HAS already happened, and the letters say The Biography of ___________ or some other title. Except one time, you see an autobiography. For example, the title of the book is ________: A Life, and at the bottom it says My Autobiography. Now I am going to explain the differences:

Let's break down the word biography.

bio means life
graphy is Greek for writing  

So, biography mean the writing about someone's life.

auto means self

So, autobiography means the story of someone's life written by the person who lived it. 

An autobiography is a book that explains the life of a person, AND the story of the book is the author of the book. For instances, if a book about Steve Jobs was an autobiography, Steve Jobs actually wrote it. A biography is similar to an autobiography, but someone else wrote the book. When someone wrote about Steve Jobs that wasn't Steve Jobs, you would call that a biography. 

This is an example picture of an autobiography and a biography (click to enlarge):

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

If you clicked on the book about George Washington, you would have seen that it was written by Roberta Edwards. It is a biography.

The one about Lemony Snicket (my favorite author) is pretty obvious because in the title it reveals that it is an autobiography. Mr. Snicket wrote his life story.

Do you like autobiographies better or do you like biographies better?

Please share a fact about a famous person you read about. Was it a biography or autobiography?