American dictionary of national biography vol

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edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee

The Dictionary of National Biography (or DNB) is a biographical reference for deceased persons notable in British history. The current edition of this work has been published online by Oxford University Press since 2004. The current electronic edition is not free, but is available through individual or library subscription. There is also a recent print edition.

Some earlier editions of this work are freely available online, and remain of historic interest. Below we link to free online volumes of the first and second editions, and some of their supplementary volumes.

First edition

Google Books has various page image formats for all of the volumes, as does the Internet Archive. (The Google Books editions might not be readable in full outside the United States.) We give links to the first edition volumes below.

Supplementary volumes for the first edition

Second edition

Google Books has various page image formats for the original second edition volumes. The Google Books editions might not be readable in full outside the United States. The Internet Archive also has some of the second edition volumes online, without country restrictions. We give links to available second edition volumes b

Reference work

Not to be confused with the Dictionary of American Biography compiled by Francis Samuel Drake, later incorporated in Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography.

The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) was a multi-volume dictionary published in New York City by Charles Scribner's Sons under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

History

The dictionary was first proposed to the Council in 1920 by historian Frederick Jackson Turner. The first edition was published in 20 volumes from 1928 to 1936, appearing at a rate of two or three volumes per year. These 20 volumes contained 15,000 biographies. In 1946, the 20 volumes were released as a ten-volume set, with each of the ten volumes divided into two parts (Part 1 and Part 2) corresponding to two volumes of the first edition combined into one, the page numbering of the first edition being retained.

The ACLS appealed to Adolph Ochs, publisher of The New York Times, for funding. He loaned the Council $50,000 per year for 10 years. Ochs exercised no editorial control.

The dictionary included no biographies of the living, and some period of residence in the United States was required for inclusion. These twenty volumes had numerous quirks. For example, the entry for Mary Baker Eddy filled eight pages, the entry for Mark Twain only six and a half. Connecticut and Massachusetts were overrepresented, while Arizona had just one entry. Noticeable omissions included, among others, Sojourner Truth, Martha Washington, Scott Joplin, Charles Guiteau, and Joe Hill. In the early volumes terms such as "red men" and "savages" were occasionally used.

With the passage of time the usefulness of the series as a reference work waned. Ten supplementary volumes were issued, between 1944 and 1995, each covering people who had died after the previous supplement. The first eight su

Biographical encyclopedia

The American National Biography (ANB) is a 24-volume biographical encyclopedia set that contains about 17,400 entries and 20 million words, first published in 1999 by Oxford University Press under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies.

Background

A 400-entry supplement appeared in 2002. Additional funding came from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The ANB bills itself as the successor of the Dictionary of American Biography, which was first published between 1926 and 1937. It is not, however, a strict superset of this older publication; the selection of topics was made anew.

It is commonly available in the reference sections of United States libraries, and is available online by subscription (see external links).

Awards and reception

In 1999, the American Library Association awarded the American National Biography its Dartmouth Medal as a reference work of outstanding quality and significance. The American Historical Association's Waldo G. Leland Prize was awarded for 2001.

It has been criticized for missing cross references and occasional errors, and for its cost, which is said to limit availability in poor countries.

Selected access

Volumes via Internet Archive (full access, free, with registration)