series of biographies; collection of biographies
Refers to a genre of historical writing, especially in East Asian historiography, where biographies of notable individuals are compiled in a single work or section. Often used in titles such as 列伝体 or 史記列伝.
Sima Qian's 'Records of the Grand Historian' contains many series of biographies.
This book is widely read as a collection of biographies of Sengoku warlords.
biographical style
From Chinese 列傳 (lièzhuàn), literally 'arranged biographies'. The term was adopted into Japanese and is used in the context of classical Chinese and Japanese historiography.