Author Description
John Aubrey (1626-1697), antiquary, natural philosopher, and virtuoso, is best-remembered today for his Brief Lives, biographies of his contemporaries filled with luminous detail which have been mined for anecdotes by generations of scholars. However, Aubrey was much more than merely the hand behind an invaluable source of biographical material; he was also the author of thousands of pages of manuscript notebooks covering everything from the origins of Stonehenge to the evolution of folklore. Kelsey Jackson Williams explores these manuscripts in full for the first time and in doing so illuminates the intricacies of Aubrey's investigations into Britain's past. The Antiquary is both a major new study of an important early modern writer and a significant intervention in the developing historiography of antiquarianism. It discusses the key aspects of Aubrey's work in a series of linked chapters on archaeology, architecture, biography, folklore, and philology, concluding with a revisionist interpretation of Aubrey's antiquarian writings. While covering a wide variety of scholarly territory, it remains rooted in the common thread of Aubrey's own intellectual development and the continual interaction between his texts as he studied, discovered, revised, and rewrote them across four decades. Its conclusions not only substantially reshape our understanding of Aubrey and his works, but also provide new understandings of the methodologies, ambitions, and achievements of antiquarianism across early modern Europe.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
How did John Aubrey’s extensive manuscript collection and intellectual methodology shape the development of early modern antiquarianism? Kelsey Jackson Williams, a scholar of early modern literature and history, utilizes Aubrey’s vast, unpublished notebooks to argue that his work represents a sophisticated, evolving system of inquiry rather than a mere collection of anecdotes. By tracing the development of Aubrey’s research across four decades, the author demonstrates that his contributions to archaeology, folklore, and biography were central to the intellectual landscape of seventeenth-century Europe.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of John Aubrey’s unpublished manuscript notebooks.
- Examination of seventeenth-century methodologies in archaeology, architecture, and philology.
- A revisionist interpretation of Aubrey’s role in the history of British antiquarianism.
Scope Limits
- The text focuses primarily on Aubrey’s intellectual development and scholarly output rather than a comprehensive personal biography.
- It does not provide a general survey of all seventeenth-century antiquarians, focusing instead on Aubrey as a case study.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of early modern historiography and the intellectual history of the seventeenth century. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which provides a rigorous examination of previously under-researched primary source material.
Page Count:
224
Publication Date:
2016-01-01
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
ISBN-10:
0191087130
ISBN-13:
9780191087134
Biography
History
Antiquarianism
Historiography
History - Modern
Literary Criticism
English
English & College Success