John
Aubrey
born March 12, 1626, Easton Piercy,
Wiltshire, Eng.
died June 1697, Oxford
antiquarian and biographer, best known for his
vivid, intimate, and sometimes acid sketches of
his contemporaries. Educated at Oxford at
Trinity College, he studied law in London at the
Middle Temple. He early displayed his interest
in antiquities by calling attention to the
prehistoric stones at Avebury, Wiltshire. His
literary and scientific interests won him a
fellowship of the Royal Society in 1663.
Meanwhile, in his travels in England and Europe,
he became entangled in love suits and lawsuits
(from which he was never free until he sold the
remainder of his estates in 1670) and avoided
creditors. His easy, equable temper won him many
friends, among them the architect Sir
Christopher Wren and the philosopher Thomas
Hobbes.
In 1667 Aubrey met the historian and antiquarian
Anthony à Wood and began gathering materials for
Wood’s projected Athenae Oxonienses, a vast
biographical dictionary of Oxford writers and
ecclesiastics (though portions of Aubrey’s
contribution were eventually withheld after
disagreements with Wood). He also continued
gathering antiquities. His Miscellanies (1696),
a collection of stories of apparitions and
curiosities, was the only work that appeared
during his lifetime. After his death, some of
his antiquarian materials were included in The
Natural History and Antiquities of . . . Surrey
(1719) and The Natural History of Wiltshire
(1847).
His biographies first appeared as Lives of
Eminent Men (1813). The definitive presentation
of Aubrey’s biographical manuscripts, however,
is Brief Lives (2 vol., 1898; edited by Andrew
Clark). Though not biographies in the strict
sense of the word, Aubrey’s Lives, based on
observation and gossip, are profiles graced by
picturesque and revealing detail that have found
favour with later generations. They also convey
a delightful impression of their easygoing
author.
