Letter Lives
The Brief Lives are a collection of short biographies written by John Aubrey of personalities from the Elizabethan era and Aubrey's contemporaries from the late 17th century.
Aubrey was supposed to collect biographical information for the antiquarian Anthony Wood . He planned to write a book about all the famous people who had been to Oxford or studied there. Over time, the preliminary work became a separate project.
John Aubrey tried to find out every detail, quirk, and form of gossip about the characters. He was so committed that he not only recognized important people - the work includes biographies of William Shakespeare , Francis Bacon , Robert Boyle , John Dee , Sir Walter Raleigh , Edmund Halley and Ben Jonson - but also simple people from his environment in his notebook. This disorganized manuscript was only made readable and published posthumously. The original notes are now kept in the Bodleian Library .
After long controversy, the Brief Lives are now considered an important source of research into British society at the end of the 17th century.
The British actor and author Patrick Garland wrote and directed a play based on the Brief Lives in 1967 .
output
- Mr. John Aubrey's, Esq. Life drafts. Translated by Wolfgang Schlueter . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-8218-4114-1 (= The Other Library 114).