John Aubrey

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD

This 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 archaeologist and the inventor of modern biography.

With all the wit, charm and originality that characterises her subject, Ruth Scurr has seamlessly stitched together John Aubreys own words to tell his life story and a captivating history of seventeenth-century England unlike any other.

'A game-changer in the world of biography' Mary Beard

'Ingenious' Hilary Mantel

'Irresistible' Philip Pullman

Ruth Scurr is an historian, biographer and literary critic. She teaches history and politics at Cambridge University, where she is a Lecturer and Fellow of Gonville&Caius College. Her first book,Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolutionwon the Franco-British Society Literary Prize, was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and was listed among the 100 Best Books of the Decade inThe Times. She reviews regularly for theTimes Literary Supplement,The Telegraphand theWall Street Journal.

A genre-busting diary-biography of John Aubrey - antiquary, biographer, and perfect seventeenth-century English gentleman - in his own words. Charm, wit and a little bit of melodrama.