Brief Lives

Brief Lives is a collection of short biographies written by John Aubrey (1626–1697) in the last decades of the 17th century.

It has been the task of later editors to organise the manuscripts (held at the Bodleian Library) into readable form.

Aubrey's Brief Lives has been loved for generations for its colourful gossipy tone and for the glimpses it provides of the unofficial sides of its subjects.

Aubrey's use of informants and his eye for the unusual provides much more vivid pictures than a biography based on documents could.

The Brief Lives includes biographies of such figures as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Thomas Browne, John Dee, Sir Walter Raleigh, Edmund Halley, Ben Jonson, Thomas Hobbes, John Ogilby, William Petty and William Shakespeare.