Try free for 30 days

1 credit a month to use on any title, yours to keep (you’ll use your first credit on this title).
Stream or download thousands of included titles.
Access to exclusive deals and discounts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
John Aubrey cover art

John Aubrey

By: Ruth Scurr
Narrated by: Mark Elstob
Try for $0.00

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $28.00

Buy Now for $28.00

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Publisher's Summary

Shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Biography Award.

This is the autobiography that John Aubrey never wrote.

You may not know his name. Aubrey was a modest man, a gentleman-scholar who cared far more for the preservation of history than for his own legacy. But he was a passionate collector, an early archaeologist and the inventor of modern biography. With all the wit, charm and originality that characterises her subject, Ruth Scurr has seamlessly stitched together John Aubrey's own words to tell his life story and a captivating history of 17th-century England unlike any other.

©2015 Ruth Scurr (P)2022 W F Howes

Critic Reviews

"An audacious and successful attempt to write a biography in the subject's own words. Scurr has ingeniously edited Aubrey's swift, vivid prose into a coherent account of the life lived by one of the most interesting (and interested—in everything) writers of our most exciting century, the 17th. Irresistible." (Guardian)

"To me this book is a delight and…it is the one that I would take with me to a desert island." (The Times)

"Writing a biography of a biographer that doubles as an experimental analysis of biography itself is a formidable and astonishing achievement. That it is also profoundly affecting is what makes John Aubrey: My Own Life a triumph." (Stuart Kelly, The Times Literary Supplement)

What listeners say about John Aubrey

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.