John Aubrey, My Own Life

John Aubrey: My Own Life is an extraordinary book about the first modern biographer that reimagines what biography can be. This intimate diary of Aubrey’s days is composed of his own words, collected, collated, and enlarged upon by Ruth Scurr in an act of meticulous scholarship and daring imagination. Aubrey was born in Wiltshire, England, in 1626, and is best known as the author ofBrief Lives, a book that redefined the art of biography through its informal and memorable sketches of the lives of his contemporaries, both men and women. The reign of Queen Elizabeth and the dissolution of the monasteries were not too far distant in memory during Aubrey’s boyhood. He lived through some of England’s most interesting times: the Civil War, the execution of Charles I, the brief rule of Oliver Cromwell and his son, and the restoration of Charles II. Scurr’s biography honors and echoes Aubrey’s own innovations in the art of biography. Rather than subject his life to a conventional narrative, Scurr has collected the evidence—remnants of a life, from manuscripts, letters, and books—and arranged it chronologically, modernizing words and spellings, and adding explanations when necessary. All sources are given in the extensive endnotes. The result is an immediate, vibrant account of a life, “rescued...from the teeth of time,” as Aubrey said of his own strivings.

Ruth Scurr is a historian, writer, and literary critic. Her first book,Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution, won several prizes, including the Franco-British Society Literary Prize, and was chosen as one of the 100 Best Books of the Decade inThe Times (London). She reviews regularly for The Times Literary Supplement,The Telegraph, the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She teaches history and politics at Cambridge University where she is a Lecturer and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College.