Ruth Scurr , Erica Wagner

John Aubrey redefined the art of biography. In his Brief Lives we meet Christopher Wren, Isaac Newton and Thomas Hobbes; see the stones of Stonehenge and the stained glass of long-forgotten churches. Yet he is all but forgotten.

Now, in an act of scholarly imagination, the historian Ruth Scurr has resurrected Aubrey as a potent spirit for our own time, drawing on Aubrey’s own words to reveal the dry wit and irreverence of a literary trailblazer. In conversation with the author and critic Erica Wagner, she discusses her book and the life of one of the pioneers of modern writing.