Oxford dictionary of national biography : in association with the British Academy : from the earliest times to the year 2000 /

[Note: This is an abridged version of a feature review available in print (CH, Feb, '05).] ODNB's 60 volumes contain biographical sketches of 54,922 dead Brits--glorious, vainglorious, noble, or downright crooks. Coverage extends from the pre-Roman period to 2000 CE. According to Oxford historian H. C. G. Matthew, who contributed articles and edited ODNB, 1992 until his death (1999), the dictionary "is not merely a roll-call of the great and the good, but also a gallimaufry of the eccentric and the bad." Like its predecessor, Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), ed. by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (22v., 1908-09), the set is bound in blue with the Oxford Press emblem on the spines--volumes familiar to every library user. Planning a new version provided the "opportunity of creating a national iconography." Volume 1's 30-page introduction, by Brian Harrison (Matthew's successor), characterizes the ODNB as "the first point of reference for anyone interested in the lives of the peoples of the British Isles ... from the earliest times to the end of ... 2000." It "incorporates in rewritten or revised form all 38,607 lives contained in" DNB. In "The Shape of the Articles," Matthew's perception held sway: articles "should be accurate, informative, clear, and interesting to read [and] ... give a complete and balanced account of the life and work of its subject by supplying both detailed personal information and a general assessment of the subject's significance." Unlike DNB, the new work does not include "a complete list of a person's published works within the account of the life.... Instead, contributors have been encouraged to bring out ... the significance of the person's principal publications." ODNB "provides not only bibliographical sources, but also other relevant material ... lists of the person's archives (paper, sound, and film), likenesses, and records of wealth at death." ODNB is as much a product of its time and perceptions as DNB was of the late Victorian-Edwardian era. Both are alphabetically arranged. ODNB is much more collaborative than its predecessor, using a wide range of consultant advisers: over 30 in-house scholars, a dozen external consultant editors, and 400 associate editors. A total of 9,804 authors contributed, "writing new articles or revising existing ones." Other departures include 10,000 images, "the decision to publish the Dictionary only when it was complete," online access, and comprehensive scope. Ironically, in a period of New Historicism that minimizes the role and importance of the individual, ODNB's emphasis on biography provides continuity with the past, perhaps heralding a return of biography to the forefront. Harrison's introduction also covers writing the dictionary, selecting images, organization and staff, and sequence, progress, and outcome of production. Outcome includes three tables. The first, "Individual Lives," reveals that after 1901-2000, the largest increase is for 1-100 CE, where DNB had three entries but ODNB 24. The second, "Lives of Women" (DNB was criticized for its lack of articles--1,758) shows that ODNB offers 3,869 new sketches of women, for a total of 5,627. The third gives, by period, percentages of "Images," the greatest (29 percent) for the 20th century. After the introduction comes a list of abbreviations that is reprinted at the front of each volume. Each volume concludes with a list of picture credits. The volumes take 12 linear feet of shelf space and weigh 280 pounds. The first entry describes "Aaron, Richard Ithamar (1901-1987)," whose "lifelong interest" was John Locke. Entry length averages 1,100 words, but some extend to 35,000. Peter Holland's entry for Shakespeare runs 37 double-column pages. Aspects Holland considers include Shakespeare and the British Empire, world reputation, film and popular culture. Sidney Lee's Shakespeare entry in DNB fills 49 pages. Comparison of the two reveals they are products of the age when they were written--sufficient reason to shelve ODNB and DNB together. The factual entry in DNB for Virginia Woolf (by David Cecil, himself a subject in ODNB) occupies almost three columns. The considerably longer ODNB entry by Lyndall Gordon emphasizes Woolf's achievement. The relative importance of some subjects is constant. Charles Reade (1814-84), author of The Cloister and the Hearth, has just over eight columns in DNB and almost eight in ODNB. John Galsworthy (1867-1933) had almost four columns in DNB; at the turn of the 21st century, with his literary reputation in tatters, he gets nearly the same space. ODNB's entry for 19th-century natural philosopher Michael Faraday (1791-1867), almost 19 columns, draws on his correspondence and assesses his reputation; in DNB a longer entry is opaque. Mathematician James Joseph Sylvester (1814-97) is accorded just over five columns in ODNB; DNB's entry is shorter and focuses less on his actuarial work and time spent in America. In short, ODNB has entries for readers of all stripes. Subjects include librarians, actresses, media personalities, athletes, sophisticated mistresses. Of special popular interest are entries for John Lennon (1940-80) and Peter Sellers (1925-80), the latter describing superbly the "emotional undulations" of his fourth and final marriage. The fonts used in DNB and ODNB are remarkably similar. Both are set in double columns; ODNB's are slightly wider. ODNB volumes have 1,000 pages each; whether the bindings will last remains to be seen. A few misprints have crept in, and some early sets had loose gatherings and pages bound upside down. The online edition includes ODNB in full text with illustrations and the complete DNB text. Searching online will find people by places, dates, fields of interest, words and phrases in entries, bibliographic citations, contributors, images, artists, dates, and themes. People and contributors may be browsed. The online version links to archival sources. The publishers intend to update the electronic version of ODNB continuously. They will add biographies of those who died after 2000 and new sketches or amendments when new discoveries cause significant change. If Web sites fail to survive, it is comforting to imagine DNB and ODNB's dark blue bindings with gold lettering sitting on library shelves. ODNB is a gigantic, magnificent undertaking; of its 50,113 articles, some cover more than one person, and some are better than others. For 19th-century eccentrics and other minor Victorians, ODNB does not replace Frederic Boas's Modern English Biography (6v., 1892-1921) and for the 20th century, Who Was Who (1897- ) is also indispensable. ODNB is a remarkable achievement, especially considering its initial plans were laid in March 1990. It belongs in all libraries. As William Butler Yeats, himself a subject, might have remarked, ODNB is a "monument to unaging intellect." ^BSumming Up: Essential. All collections. W. Baker Northern Illinois University

This classic of British collective biography, called "an undertaking of exceptional magnitude" by Sidney Lee, its second editor, was first published between 1885 and 1900. Ten-year supplements were issued through the 1980s, and five-year supplements through the 1990s. Half the original set was written by only 34 contributors. The supplements were written by a wider range of people, often based on "personal acquaintance." The original set gave women short shrift, along with people in trade and commerce, and Victorian sensibilities meant that certain topics were taboo. To be included among the 50,000 entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), subjects must have died by the end of 2000. No one was dropped, but 70 percent of the old essays (all those on prime ministers, for instance) were replaced, and the rest were revised. More than 16,000 entries treat people who were not included in the original DNB. The scope spans 2,400 years and includes mythical figures like Robin Hood and Piltdown Man. Some people are treated in group entries. Ten percent of the entries are for women. All traces of Victorian propriety are gone: now Oscar Wilde is described as homosexual, and artist Eric Gill's unorthodox sex life is described in detail. As in the original set, the writing is clear and often witty. The ODNB is aimed at the general reader, as well as the scholar, and contains many figures from popular culture: Barbara Cartland, Benny Hill, and Sid Vicious, for example. What does national in the title mean? The set includes those who were born or died in Britain (including Ireland), as well as people "noteworthy in the history of the British Isles, and their overseas connections." This net is cast in the broadest possible way. Many people from the former British Empire, such as Malawi's president Hastings Banda and Australian novelist Patrick White, are included. There appear to be some inconsistencies in coverage: American Jimi Hendrix is here (because he died in Britain) but not Jamaican Bob Marley. Coverage of 500 people from colonial America is a useful addition, and it is interesting to see them described from a British point of view. Each entry begins with birth and death dates and a tag describing what the person was known for (e.g., "cotton spinner," "cricketer," or a marquess who is simply labeled "wastrel"). While the average biography is about 1,000 words long, some entries are as long as 37,000 words. Entries conclude with a section called "References," which contains often-extensive bibliographies (called "Sources"), a list of archives holding the subject's papers, sources of likenesses, and, sometimes, "wealth at death." Ten thousand entries are illustrated with portraits: in the print set they are all in black and white, but online some are in color. The print set has no list of entries nor any indexes, except a volume that lists all the contributors with a list of the entries they wrote. No institutional affiliations are given for contributors, more than 1,000 of whom are from the U.S. Researchers looking for biographies by anything other than personal name will need to use the online version, with its powerful searching capabilities. In addition to a Quick Search by name or full-text keyword, there are three basic ways to find information online: Browse, Themes, and Search. Browse lets the user scan the entries alphabetically by name or by year of birth or death. Themes Search offers two features. Ready Reference has lists of prime ministers, archbishops of Canterbury, Nobel Prize winners, Olympic title holders, and others. Feature essays focus on topics such as medical biography and Disraeli's 2004 bicentenary. The Search function is extremely sophisticated, with five ways to search: People, Full Text, References, Contributors, and Images. Wild cards can be used in most fields. People Search can be modified by sex, religion, field of interest, dates, places, and the presence of an image in the entry. One can find all the Jewish women in the ODNB or all the men who lived in the nineteenth century whose field of interest was travel and exploration in Africa. The Fields of Interest filter has 25 broad categories, from Agriculture to Travel and Exploration, which can then be divided into subfields and sub-subfields. The full list is so long that it can be slow to load. Full Text Search uses Boolean limiters and can be limited to a particular part of entries, such as place or organization names. In References Search, one can search Sources, Archives, Likenesses, and Wealth at Death. Using Contributors Search results in a list of all entries by an individual, just as in the print set. Images can be searched by artist, dates, location, and credit. In a results list, each entry name is followed by birth and death dates, the descriptive tag, and an icon if there is a portrait. Within an entry, it is possible to highlight any word or phrase and do a quick search in the whole database. Long entries have clickable lists of subheads. There are links to entries in the original DNB and entries in American National Biography (Oxford, 2000), assuming the institution subscribes to ANB Online. The online context-sensitive help is useful, but most users will need some direction to take advantage of all the database's features. According to Oxford, the online version will be updated three times per year, and the print set "periodically." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is fascinating reading and will prove useful to researchers in many disciplines. The online version provides extremely powerful tools for searching. The ODNB is an important purchase for most academic libraries and very large public libraries. Libraries that can only afford one version of this mammoth compilation should consider subscribing to the online one. --Sandy Whiteley Copyright 2005 Booklist