John Aubrey's racy portraits of the great figures of 17th-century
England stand alongside Pepys's diary as a vivid evocation of the
period. Aubrey was born in 1626, the son of a Wiltshire squire; at the
age of 26 he inherited a family estate encumbered with debt, and
finally went bankrupt in the 1670s. From then on he led a sociable,
rootless existence at the houses of friends - from Oxford and the
Middle Temple -pursuing the antiquarian studies which had always
obsessed him. At his death in 1697 he left a mass of notes and
manuscripts, among them the material for 'Brief Lives'. He never
managed to put even a single life into logical order; all we have are
the raw materials, scribbled down -`tumultuously as they occurred to my
thoughts'.
With this full, modern English edition, which
reproduces Aubrey's words as closely as possible, Richard Barber
introduces us to Aubrey and his world, tells how the 'Lives' came
into being and enables many new readers to enjoy this eccentric
masterpiece.
