memoir

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An account of the personal experiences of an author.
2. n. An autobiography. Often used in the plural.
3. n. A biography or biographical sketch.
4. n. A report, especially on a scientific or scholarly topic.
5. n. The report of the proceedings of a learned society.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A note of something to be remembered; a memorandum.
2. n. A notice or an essay relating to something within the writer's own memory or knowledge; a record of facts upon a subject personally known or investigated; a concise account of one's knowledge or information on any topic; especially, a communication to a society containing such information: as, the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences.
3. n. plural A narrative of the facts or events of some phase of history or in the life of a person, written from personal knowledge or observation; a history or narrative dwelling chiefly upon points about which the writer is specially informed, as an autobiography or a continuous record of observations. Such narratives are generally limited to a special line of facts or series of events, as Guizot's Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de mon temps, ‘Memoirs to serve for the History of my Time.’
4. n. In a restricted use, a biography; a memorial volume or work containing notices of the life and character of some one deceased, with extracts from his (or her) correspondence, etc. Synonyms Biography, Memoir. See biography.

Wiktionary

1. n. An autobiography; a book describing the personal experiences of an author.
2. n. Any form of narrative describing the personal experiences of a writer.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A memorial account; a history composed from personal experience and memory; an account of transactions or events (usually written in familiar style) as they are remembered by the writer. See history, 2.
2. n. A memorial of any individual; a biography; often, a biography written without special regard to method and completeness.
3. n. An account of something deemed noteworthy; an essay; a record of investigations of any subject; the journals and proceedings of a society.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an account of the author's personal experiences
2. n. an essay on a scientific or scholarly topic