Aubrey, John (1626–1697)

English biographer and antiquary. He was the first to claim Stonehenge as a Druid temple. His Lives, begun in 1667, contains gossip, anecdotes, and valuable insights into the celebrities of his time. It was published as Brief Lives in 1898. Miscellanies (1696), a work on folklore and ghost stories, was the only work to be published during his lifetime.

Aubrey was born in Easton Percy, Wiltshire, and educated at Oxford. He studied law but did not qualify as a barrister. He became dependent on patrons, including the antiquary Elias Ashmole and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, after being made bankrupt in 1670 by a series of lawsuits following his father's death in 1652. Other works are Miscellanies, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, and Observations.