Brief Lives

Written by John Aubrey

Narrated by Brian Cox

William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Hobbes – three of the greatest Englishmen who ever lived. They, and many others, are here remembered by another great Englishman, John Aubrey, whose Brief Lives are some of the wittiest and most moving miniature portraits ever written. Aubrey – a scholar, antiquarian and close observer of both the foibles and the courage of his contemporaries – lived through the upheavals of the English Civil War in the seventeenth century. His little biographies are amusing, ribald, moving; a testament to the brevity of human existence and one of the most precious relics of a distant age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
• Release date: Apr 1, 2006
• ISBN: 9789629547233

John Aubrey

John Aubrey (1626-1697) was a British writer, antiquarian, and archaeologist. He lived and worked toward the end of the Scientific Revolution, a time when the process, methods, and standards of modern science first began to be developed. Remembered today for his curious spirit, attention to detail, and passion for inquiry, Aubrey was a renowned researcher in his day, discovering and recording numerous megalithic monuments, Roman ruins, and burial sites, as well as tracing the history of British place names. He was also a dedicated folklorist, studying the traditions, customs, and religions of the British people. Brief Lives, his most famous work, is a collection of short biographical studies of hundreds of British poets, politicians, playwrights, scientists, and other intellectual or public figures.

Reviews for Brief Lives

[papalaz_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have, in all honesty, lost track of the number of times I have returned to this gem of a book since I first read it in the 1960s. There is something so very modern about Aubrey's way of portraying his subjects that never pales. He brings to life the people and life of the 16th and 17th centuries with personal recollections and trivia that illuminate and educate. Vivid, frank and sometimes bawdy Aubrey is always entertaining and ever enlightening. The foreword by Oilver Lawson Dick is a none too brief life of Aubrey himself but is in its own way fascinating. A must read if only for the lives of Shakespeare and Marvell

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a wonderful collection of gossip about Englishmen, some of them great from Elizabethan times to the Restoration of 1660. Many colourful details from here have gone on to enlighten more involved biographies. The Editor did a very good job, and the book is the better for it, I have been told.The original first partially saw print in the early 1700's.

[aubreycat · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Casting himself as the "Ingeniose and publick-spirited young Man," who Aubrey wished to put his papers in order, Oliver Lawson Dick treated Aubrey's manuscripts as if they were his own, and while not changing the writing, ruthlessly rearranged it. It is hard to see how a better job could have been done. About a third of Aubrey's gossipy, sometimes touching, often funny, short biographies are contained here, with much more material in the long biographical introduction. Aubrey's spellings are retained; after a few pages, any book with normal spellings seems very thin stuff.