A Dictionary of Biography, Past and Present (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 93 A Marriage of True Minds: the biographers' sanity, humanity, comprehensiveness of vision, and ability to reconstruct a pair of lives in a natural order without having seemed to impose such an order. The book if short has scope and an authority that may well prove to be enduring . Frederick P. W. McDowell State University of Iowa Benjamin Vincent, A Dictionary of Biography, Past and Present. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1977. 641 pp. $38.00. The subtitle of this book reads: "Containing the Chief Events in the Lives of Eminent Persons of all Ages and Nations. Preceded by the Biographies and Genealogies of the Chief Representatives of the Royal Houses of the World." All that is awesome, in fact grandiose. But of far greater curiosity is the very publication of this book. More precisely, it is a reissue of a volume put out in England in 1877 which in turn was a revised and expanded edition of an 1870 work called Haydn's Universal Index of Biography. The compiler, Benjamin Vincent (1818-1899), was librarian of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. More than 20,000 persons are sketchily covered—those lucky enough to have lived, in at least some prominence, before 1878. Even so, there are some baffling omissions: Thoreau and Whitman, for example . Most of the entries are far too terse to provide any illumination . Here, for example, is the cavalier treatment of Boswell: BOSWELL, James, Scotch biographer, b. 29 Oct., 1740; came to London; introduced to Dr. Johnson, 16 May, 1763; published 'Corsica ', 1768; 'Tour to the Hebrides' 1785; 'Life of Dr. Johnson,' 1790; d. 19 May, 1793. What are the standards by which one gained admission to this who's who? No clue is given. Could anyone without a very special, scholarly interest possibly care about this entry: BUSBY, Richard, master of Westminster school 55 years; b. 22 Sept., 1606; d. 6 April, 1695. People now totally forgotten—generals, knights, poets or whatever —are jumbled together with lasting figures like Disraeli and Washington . In all cases, only the barest facts are cited. Certainly a researcher seeking a fast clue to someone's identity— whether in the third century or thirteenth—could get an instant assist from this book. Whether he would want to pay $38.00 for it is another 94 biography Vol. 1, No. 3 matter, especially since a discouraging number of the entries wind up like this: SALE, John Bernard, organist, b. 24 June, 1779; d. 16 Oct., 1856. The antiquarian or the specialist in 19th century history may find this reissue to have some justification. Less earnest readers might have tun with it as a parlor game: Who can come up with the most obscure names? Thus: Ballantine, William, lawyer; b. 1814; serjeant-at-law, 1863. Or: Powys, Hon. Horatio, bishop of Sodor and Man; b. Nov. 1805; consecrated, 1854. Serrell Hillman University of Hawaii Notices Joseph Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries: The Last Days. Ed. H. R. Trevor-Roper, trans. Richard Barry. Published in Spring, 1978 in London by Seeker and Warburg. Extracts currently published serially in the London (Sunday) Observer Review. These extracts from Goebbels' wartime diaries reveal the death-throes of the Third Reich as seen through the eyes of Hitler's Minister for Propaganda and Enlightenment. The entries are articulate, desperately incisive, humorless, frequently ruthless, and sometimes paranoid. Especially interesting is the flitting ambivalence of Goebbels' attitudes towards Hitler whom he sees theoretically as the Fuehrer (in the cast of Frederick the Great) whilst being increasingly and almost pathetically aware that, in fact, the toy god is winding down. Goebbels' twilight comments convey the force, the perverted integrity , and the ultimate corruption of the Nazi party and ofthat part of the German national soul which colluded with Hitler's schemes for world dominion. (To be reviewed more comprehensively in a forthcoming issue of Biography). A.M.F. Nan Heacock, Crinoline to Calico. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1977. 242 pp. $7.95. A professed fusion of biography and fiction to produce an account of nineteenth-century Iowa life. ...