John Aubrey

John Aubrey , 1626-97, English antiquary and miscellaneous writer, b. Kingston, Wiltshire, educated at Trinity College, Oxford. He knew most of the famous people of his day and left copious memorandums as well as letters. His most celebrated work, Lives of Eminent Men, was originally compiled for the use of Anthony Wood in his Athenae Oxonienses. The Lives first appeared in print in 1813. Only his Miscellanies (1696), a collection of stories and folklore, was published in his lifetime. Extremely interested in antiquities, he wrote the Natural History of Wiltshire (ed. by John Britton, 1847) and Perambulation of Surrey, which was included in the Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey (1719).

Aubrey, John (1626–97) English antiquarian and author. He was a pioneer of field archaeology, most of his researches being centred on the earthworks and monuments in Wiltshire (particularly Avebury and Stonehenge) and became one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society in 1663. As an author, he is chiefly remembered for the lively and anecdotal collection of biographies of eminent persons, such as John Milton and Francis Bacon, known as Brief Lives, a bowdlerized edition of which was first published in 1813.

Aubrey, John (1626–97), English antiquarian and author, chiefly remembered for Brief Lives, a collection of biographies of eminent people (a bowdlerized edition was first published in 1813).