Oxford dictionary national biography
•
The Online Books Page
presents
edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee
The Dictionary of National Biography (or DNB) is a biographical reference for deceased persons notable in British history. The current edition of this work has been published online by Oxford University Press since The current electronic edition is not free, but is available through individual or library subscription. There is also a recent print edition.
Some earlier editions of this work are freely available online, and remain of historic interest. Below we link to free online volumes of the first and second editions, and some of their supplementary volumes.
First edition
The first edition was published in 63 volumes from through in London by Smith, Elder, and Co. (In the US, Macmillan also published many of the volumes in conjunction with Smith, Elder. These copies are noted in the list below with an "(M)" notation.) Various supplements, errata volumes, and indexes were published in the years to fo•
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The fascinating entries and story of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Programme One: Lasting Fame
Editor David Cannadine takes us behind the scenes at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) to examine why this late Victorian Institution with thousands upon thousands of detailed and vivid entries about the great and the good is still relevant in the internet age. We hear the processes by which candidates are selected for inclusion, how the style and content have changed over the years and why, in a period which tries to look beyond the praise of famous men and women, there is still a place for a publication that unashamedly does just that.
And most important of all we hear about some of the colourful figures who lurk in the Dictionaries holdings, from Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, alias Grey Owl, the impostor conservationist of the early 20th century to the earliest female UK parliamentary candidate, Alice Lucas an
•
Dictionary of National Biography
Reference on notable British figures
The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) was published on 23 September in 60 volumes and online, with 50, biographical articles covering 54, lives.
First series
[edit]Hoping to emulate national biographical collections published elsewhere in Europe, such as the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (), in the publisher George Smith (–), of Smith, Elder & Co., planned a universal dictionary that would include biographical entries on individuals from world history. He approached Leslie Stephen, then editor of the Cornhill Magazine, owned by Smith, to become the editor. Stephen persuaded Smith that the work should focus only on subjects from the United Kingdom and its present and former colonies. An early working title was the Biographia Bri