Frederic Boase’s Modern English Biography (1892--1921) contains over 25,000 biographies of English men and women from the nineteenth century, making this six-volume dictionary an essential reference work for scholars in many disciplines. For a period of over twenty years Boase (1843--1916) made a collection of notes relating to English persons deceased since 1850. The work contains memoirs of a wide variety of figures including privy councillors, knights, judges, queen’s counsel, bishops, deans, archdeacons, generals and members of parliament. Other persons included are architects, inventors, publishers, actors, painters, engravers, physicians, eccentric characters and notorious criminals: ‘in fact any one who has been well known and about whom a question might arise in general conversations’ (from the Preface). Each memoir contains the main details of each life, sources of portraits and, for authors, short titles of their main works. Boase’s information was carefully obtained and checked from various sources to give accurate details, such as birth and death dates. Froude said: ‘We want the biographies of common people’, and the Modern English Biography achieves this in its coverage of hundreds of lesser-known authors, artists, journalists, country gentlemen and many others. Divided alphabetically into six volumes, each volume contains an index of ‘the more remarkable, curious and interesting matter’, for example, Royal Society fellows, pseudonyms, inventions, and deaths under peculiar circumstances (by falling in a flying machine, from an explosion of steam, killed by a bear in a bear-pit in Berne).Containing a wealth of information, this important contribution to English biography of the nineteenth century supplements other biographical sources such as the Dictionary of National Biography, English Men of Letters, Alumni Oxionienses and Cantabrigienses. Reprinted here in its entirety, this long out-of-print dictionary is an indispensable resource for historians, genealogists, nineteenth century scholars, librarians and biographers.--indispensable biographical dictionary --over 25,000 biographies of notable English men and women of the period 1850 to 1916 --useful comprehensive subject indexes Read Less