'I here lay down to you the truth, and nothing but the truth: the naked and plain truth, which is here exposed so bare that the very pudenda are not covered, and affords many passages that would raise a blush in a young virgin's cheek.' The Langley Press edition includes the lives of Aubrey's most famous subjects, including Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton and Sir Walter Ralegh. This selection includes a number of blush-making passages that were missed out of Andrew Clark's 188...

"Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects" is a collection of essays and reflections by John Aubrey, a notable 17th-century English antiquary and biographer. The work showcases Aubrey's diverse interests, ranging from natural history to folklore, and provides a unique glimpse into the intellectual landscape of his time. His engaging prose and keen observations reveal the curiosities of the world around him, making the book a fascinating read for those interested in the early modern period and th...

In "The Natural History of Wiltshire," John Aubrey presents a meticulously crafted account of the county's landscapes, flora, fauna, and antiquities, blending elements of natural history with personal observations and anecdotal evidence. Written in the 17th century, Aubrey's work embodies the emerging empirical spirit of the scientific revolution while embracing a literary style rich in curiosity and detailed description. His eclectic approach merges geography, folklore, and archaeology, o...

The antiquarian and biographer John Aubrey is best known for vivid, intimate and at times acerbic sketches of his famous seventeenth century contemporaries. His celebrated ‘Brief Lives’ are not biographies in the strict sense, being based on observation and gossip, offering engaging portraits that are graced by picturesque and revealing detail. Winning great acclaim with later generations, they include revealing stories of such figures as Francis Bacon, Thomas Browne, Sir Walter Ra...

This new selection from John Aubrey's enormous work of 17th-century biography, Brief Lives, brings together his writings on contemporary scientists, explorers and men of innovation, including astronomer Edmund Halley, celebrated mapmaker Wenceslaus Hollar, and the architects Christopher Wren and Inigo Jones. Simultaneously quirky, amusing, and informative, these pieces together provide a fascinating portrait of an exciting and inventive age.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RUTH SCURRJohn Aubrey was a modest man, a self-styled antiquarian and the man who invented modern biography. His ‘lives’ of the prominent figures of his generation and the Elizabethan era, including Shakespeare, Milton and Sir Walter Raleigh, have been plundered by historians for centuries for their frankness and fascinating detail. Collected here are all of Aubrey’s biographical writings, a series of unforgettable portraits of the characters of his day, sti...

Aubrey tells us that from an early age he liked to talk to old people, ‘as living histories’. Since the biographer was born in 1626, many of the human chronicles he consulted would have had fresh memories of the Elizabethan age.This selection, the second from the Langley Press, covers the most famous Elizabethans John Aubrey wrote about, who were not included in 'Aubrey's Brief Lives: A Selection'. These include Francis Bacon, the occultist John Dee, and the poet Sir Philip Sidney....

'A truly remarkable writer, one of the most gifted non-fiction authors alive' Simon Schama, Financial TimesSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARDThis is the autobiography that John Aubrey never wrote.You may not know his name. Aubrey was a modest man, a gentleman-scholar who cared far more for the preservation of history than for his own legacy. But he was a passionate collector, an early archaeolog...

Gods and monsters live in and around us, they are passed from generation to generation through stories of romance and adventure and warnings against the night. Sometimes cruel, often loving, these stories are windows into worlds at once strange and personal.

William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Hobbes three of the greatest Englishmen who ever lived. They, and many others, are here remembered by another great Englishman, John Aubrey, whose Brief Lives are some of the wittiest and most moving miniature portraits ever written. Aubrey a scholar, antiquarian and close observer of both the foibles and the courage of his contemporaries lived through the upheavals of the English Civil War in the seventeenth century. His little biographies a...

Mama tries to save her daughter from a marriage that has killed her two sons. An angel black with the names of his petitioners hears her pleas and offers her salvation at a price, since no prayer is answered without a cost….

A collection of sparkling gossipy biographical pieces of Aubrey's contemporaries, including Bacon, Jonson and Shakespeare, Brief Lives' glimpses into the unofficial side of these towering figures has won it an undying popularity, with Ruth Scurr's recent reimagined "autobiography" of Aubrey, breathing new life into this classic for the next generation of readers.