Schiff was born in Adams, Massachusetts, to Morton Schiff, the president of Schiff Clothing, a store founded by Schiff's great-grandfather in 1897, and Ellen, a professor of French literature at North Adams State college (now called Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts).^[2] Schiff graduated from Phillips Academy (Andover) preparatory school, and subsequently earned her B.A. degree from Williams College in 1982. She was a senior editor at Simon & Schuster until 1990.

Schiff won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Véra, a biography of Véra Nabokov, the wife and muse of the Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. She was also a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Saint-Exupéry: A Biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.^[1]

Schiff's A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (2005) won the George Washington Book Prize.^[3] It was made into Franklin, a 2024 miniseries starring Michael Douglas.

Her fourth book, Cleopatra: A Life, was published in 2010. As The Wall Street Journal's reviewer put it, "Schiff does a rare thing: She gives us a book we'd miss if it didn't exist."^[4] The New Yorker termed the book "a work of literature";^[5] Simon Winchester predicted "it will become a classic".^[6] Cleopatra appeared on The New York Times's Top Ten Books of 2010,^[7] and won the 2011 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography.^[8]

Schiff's The Witches: Salem, 1692 was published in 2015. The New York Times described it as "an almost novelistic, thriller-like narrative".^[9] David McCullough declared the book "brilliant from start to finish".^[10] Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Jane Kamensky concluded, “For all her talents in sketching the who, what, where and when of the Salem trials, [the] vexed question of why is one that Schiff simply cannot manage.” ^[11] Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Felipe Fernández-Armesto found that Schiff offered "a trial narrative unsurpassed for detail and impressive for her mastery of the fragmentary and frustrating sources."^[12]

Her essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Washington Post.^[13][14][15] A former guest columnist at The New York Times, Schiff resides in New York City and is a trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.^[16]

• National Endowment for the Humanities, fellowship^[17]
• 1995 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Saint-Exupéry: A Biography^[18]
• 1996 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, fellowship^[17][19]
• 2000 Pulitzer Prize, Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)^[20]
• 2002 Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center Fellowship, New York Public Library^[21]
• 2006 George Washington Book Prize, A Great Improvisation^[22]
• 2011 Library Lion, New York Public Library^[23]
• 2015 Lapham's Quarterly Janus Prize^[24]
• 2016 Literary Light, Boston Public Library^[25]
• 2017 New England Historic Genealogical Society Lifetime Achievement Award in History and Biography^[26]
• 2018 French Ministry of Culture, Chevalier des Arts et Lettres^[27]
• 2019 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award^[28]
• 2019 American Academy of Arts and Letters^[29]
• 2023 finalist, George Washington Book Prize, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams^[30]
• 2024 Colonial Dames of America Book Prize, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams^[31]
• 2024 William Hickling Prescott Award for Excellence in Historical Writing, Massachusetts Historical Society^[32]
• 2024 Writer in Residence, American Library in Paris^[33]

• Saint-Exupéry: A Biography. New York: A. A. Knopf. 1994. ISBN 0-679-40310-8.; nominated for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize^[34]
• Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov). Pan Books. 1999. ISBN 0-330-37674-8.; winner of 2000 Pulitzer Prize^[35]
• A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. New York: Henry Holt. 2005. ISBN 0-8050-6633-0.; published in the UK as Dr Franklin Goes to France
• Cleopatra: A Life. Little, Brown and Company. 2010. ISBN 978-0-316-00192-2.
• The Witches: Salem, 1692. Little, Brown and Company. 2015. ISBN 978-0-316-20061-5.
• The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams. Little, Brown and Company. 2022. ISBN 9780316441117.

• "Know It All". The New Yorker. July 24, 2006. Retrieved April 14, 2022.

• Essjay controversy § The New Yorker interview

• Official website
• Appearances on C-SPAN, including "Q&A – interview with Schiff", November 6, 2011
• Interview with Schiff on "New Books in Biography"
• "Stacy Schiff, The Art of Biography No. 6", The Paris Review, Winter 2017