AUBREY'S 'BRIEF LIVES' Vol.2

by John Aubrey

Overview

Compiled as material for Anthony Wood's histories of Oxford University, this text contributes to the oral history of Elizabethan and Stuart England. It parades statesmen, poets, philosopers and scientists, Raleigh and Bacon, Shakespeare and Milton, and Boyle and Halley. They, together with less well known figures, are brought to life in the recorded memories of a vast circle of Aubrey's acquaintance and from the personal knowledge of an author who revelled in the variety of human nature and in the intimate, specific and sometimes scandalous aspects of his subjects' lives

Product Details

BN ID:	2940163118373
Publisher:	Walrus Books Publisher
Publication date:	06/11/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

John Aubrey FRS was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the Brief Lives, his collection of short biographical pieces. He was a pioneer archaeologist, who recorded (often for the first time) numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England, and who is particularly noted as the discoverer of the Avebury henge monument. The Aubrey holes at Stonehenge are named after him, although there is considerable doubt as to whether the holes that he observed are those that currently bear the name. He was also a pioneer folklorist, collecting together a miscellany of material on customs, traditions and beliefs under the title "Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme". He set out to compile county histories of both Wiltshire and Surrey, although both projects remained unfinished. His "Interpretation of Villare Anglicanum" (also unfinished) was the first attempt to compile a full-length study of English place-names. He had wider interests in applied mathematics and astronomy, and was friendly with many of the greatest scientists of the day.