London : Folio Society, 1976, Hardback, Book Condition: Very Good, Folio Society , 2nd impression

Near fine copy in the original decorative cloth. Slight dust-dulling to the spine bands and panel edges. In a slipcase which is sun-toned with some light edge rubbing. Remains particularly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 325 pages; 325p. : 1 facsim., ports. ; 26cm. Subjects: Great Britain -- Biography -- 16th century -- 17th century. Brief Lives is a collection of short biographies written by John Aubrey in the last decades of the seventeenth century. Aubrey's Brief Lives has been loved for generations for its colorful gossipy tone and for the glimpses it provides of the unofficial sides of its subjects. Aubrey's use of informants and his eye for the unusual provides much more vivid pictures than a biography based on documents could. He is frank but never malicious. The Brief Lives includes biographies of such figures as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, John Dee, Sir Walter Raleigh, Edmund Halley, Ben Jonson, Thomas Hobbes, and William Shakespeare. 325 pages. Inventory No: 221139.