Aubrey's Brief Lives: A Selection

'I here lay down to you the truth, and nothing but the truth: the naked and plain truth, which is here exposed so bare that the very pudenda are not covered, and affords many passages that would raise a blush in a young virgin's cheek.'

The Langley Press edition includes the lives of Aubrey's most famous subjects, including Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton and Sir Walter Ralegh.

This selection includes a number of blush-making passages that were missed out of Andrew Clark's 1889 edition, including the speedy wooing of one of Thomas More's daughters, and the notorious tale of Walter Ralegh's al fresco love-making.