Tag Archives: dictionary of national biography

Oxford DNB January 2014 update: 219 new biographies added (Michael Foot, Tony Judt, etc.)

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The latest update of the Oxford DNB was published on 16 January 2014. It adds biographies of 219 men and women who shaped modern British history and culture, and who died in the year 2010.

ODNB Jan 2014 update

Among those now included are the politician and Labour leader Michael Foot, the music and fashion impresario, Malcolm McLaren, historians Tony Judt and J.R. Pole, and the novelists Beryl Bainbridge and Alan Sillitoe. The story of the author Beryl Bainbridge (1932-2010) is also available as an episode of the Oxford DNB’s free biography podcast.

There’s a full list of 219 additions available, together with a free gallery of selected biographies and an Introduction to the new update.

The new update brings the total number of people include in the ODNB to 59,003. The next update will be published in May 2014 and will include a special focus on the post-reformation Catholic diaspora, and the history of British cinema.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is available to Oxford readers via SOLO and Databases A-Z.

DNB – May 2011 update

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Latest update to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

First published in 2004, the Oxford DNB is now extended online every January, May, and September. The May 2011 update – the 20th since 2004 – is now available with a special focus on the history of modern Wales and Victorian genre painters.

May’s update also completes a 3-year project to provide a complete, and unique, biographical record of every English bishop from the Norman conquest to the Reformation. The complete listing will allow researchers to search across biographies to study the medieval episcopacy in new ways. To mark completion of the project its editor, Dr Henry Summerson, asks whether bishops were Born to rule?

As well as new people, ODNB updates add essays on well-known historical groups and networks, showing how people worked, or played, together. The ODNB now includes nearly 300 group essays, from the 6th century Gregorian mission to the Angry Young Men. New groups in May include the Primrose League, the Happy Valley set, and the Gang of Four; plus the Knights of the Round Table and Robin Hood’s Merrie Men.

More essays will be added in future updates, with a current list of ODNB Themes available here.