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by: John Aubrey; Oliver Lawson Dick
List Price: $20.95Amazon.com's Price: $14.25 You Save: $6.70 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9781567920635
ISBN: 1567920632
Label: David R Godine
Manufacturer: David R Godine
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 408
Publication Date: July 01, 1999
Publisher: David R Godine
Sales Rank: 829814
Studio: David R Godine
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The whole ferment of the Elizabethan age and the vigor of the century that followed come alive in these 'brief portraits' that have been looted by scholars for centuries. Here are Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas More, Shakespeare, Milton, Marvel, and countless others, who in these pages become not abstract names from a history book, but flesh and blood characters. Brief Lives was written by John Aubrey (1626-1697), the greatest gossip columnist of the seventeenth century: a hanger-on among the rich and famous who left posterity a sprawling collection of notes, anecdotes, and morsels of gossip that the editor has sutured together into a series of unforgettable portraits. These men flawed, vain, ambitious, vulnerable are more alive and kicking in these pages than in any formal history. As Edmund Wilson writes in his introduction, 'I have never read anything else that makes me feel in quite the same way what it must have been like to live then.'
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - A superb book for learning history and appreciating style
This collection of short narrative portraits of famous and semi-famous people by a recognized scientist and author is among the most interesting reading you'll enjoy. His information is detailed and personal and Aubrey's writing style is a fine pattern for modern readers as well.
I recommend this book without question.
Rating: - Early gossip columnist
Lives of the rich and famous recorded a time when there were no libel laws meant that even the dirt that wasnt fit to print could be disseminated, whether true or not. It still makes fascinating reading.
Rating: - A Fine Edition of a Classic
"Brief Lives" has always been a delight, but it was Oliver Lawson Dick's scholarly editing that revealed Aubrey's genius. And Lawson Dick's Introduction, "The Life and Times of John Aubrey", is a miracle of synthesis and compression: certainly one of the finest biographical essays ever written. This Nonpareil Books edition is sumptuous - a joy to read in these days cheap, quickly produced paperbacks.
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