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Wesley, Samuel (British clergyman and poet, 1662 – 1735). On Christmas Day 1716, Wesley was haunted by an apparition of a badger with no head. It was called Jeffrey.
Frank writes:
“It occurred to me that it would be a good idea to write a modern, updated version of John Aubrey’s Brief Lives. But it further occurred to me that some books are unimproveable, and that in trying to follow in Aubrey’s footsteps I would embarrass myself and become the butt of ridicule. The idea continued to nag at me, however, and eventually I decided the solution was to outdo Aubrey in brevity. My own Brief Lives would consist of a single, unadorned fact about each of my subjects. So the reader may not learn very much about the life of X or Y or Z, but they would be armed with one little nugget which might come in handy to chuck into a lull during the conversation at the kind of swish sophisticated cocktail party to which they no doubt get invited.”
Other entries include:
Gibson, Willie
Harmsworth, Alfred, Lord Northcliffe
Jansson, Tove
Lennon, John
Stein, Gertrude
Nixon, Richard Milhous
Schubert, Franz
Tippett, Michael
Anderson, John Henry
Brooke, Charles
Callaghan, James
Russell, Ken
Frank writes:
“It occurred to me that it would be a good idea to write a modern, updated version of John Aubrey’s Brief Lives. But it further occurred to me that some books are unimproveable, and that in trying to follow in Aubrey’s footsteps I would embarrass myself and become the butt of ridicule. The idea continued to nag at me, however, and eventually I decided the solution was to outdo Aubrey in brevity. My own Brief Lives would consist of a single, unadorned fact about each of my subjects. So the reader may not learn very much about the life of X or Y or Z, but they would be armed with one little nugget which might come in handy to chuck into a lull during the conversation at the kind of swish sophisticated cocktail party to which they no doubt get invited.”
Other entries include:
Gibson, Willie
Harmsworth, Alfred, Lord Northcliffe
Jansson, Tove
Lennon, John
Stein, Gertrude
Nixon, Richard Milhous
Schubert, Franz
Tippett, Michael
Anderson, John Henry
Brooke, Charles
Callaghan, James
Russell, Ken
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