Essay: The 60-volume 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography' is a remarkable achievement that whets the appetite for the Irish equivalent, due soon, writes Patrick M. Geoghegan.
You know you have made it when you appear in a dictionary of national biography. The downside is that only the dead are allowed admission. There seems little way of escaping this restriction, short of pursuing a successful career and then faking your own death. The missing Lord Lucan does receive an entry in the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. His career importance is listed merely as "suspected murderer" and we are told that he died "in or after 1974" and that all his life he "seemed to make a study of being anachronistic".
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has been 12 years in the making and it is a truly remarkable achievement. It contains 54,922 biographical entries and stretches to 60 volumes (and costs £6,500 if purchased before the end of November; otherwise it's £7,500). As such, it is beyond the price range of most individuals; however, there is also a fully text-searchable online edition available to purchase (for £195 annually plus VAT) and this will transform how research can be conducted in the years ahead.
This is not merely an updating of the old Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), edited by Leslie Stephen (the father of Virginia Woolf) and then by Sidney Lee, which was published in 63 volumes between 1885 and 1900. It is a complete reworking, based on the existing formula, it's true, but very much adjusted to suit the requirements and demands of society in the 21st century. The old DNB (as it will now be known) was updated throughout the 20th century at regular intervals to include those who had died in the intervening period (with a volume for "Missing Persons" who had escaped inclusion). However, towards the end of the 20th century, it was decided a completely new DNB project was necessary.
It was an enormous undertaking, begun in 1992 under the editorship of Prof Colin Matthew, the distinguished Gladstonian scholar, who brought to the project a determination and organisational genius and who was in many ways its driving force. The tragedy is that he did not live to see its completion and is now an entry in the very work he did so much to shape and bring into being.
He was succeeded by Prof Brian Harrison, who built upon Matthew's foundations and who also deserves a large amount of credit for this remarkable achievement.
The original DNB (together with its supplements) included 38,607 subjects, and early on Matthew decided that all of these people should remain in the new work. At first glance this appears a strange decision - many of these people are now completely forgotten and merely reflect the obsessions of the Victorian era (for example, the inclusion of so many minor clergymen) - but Matthew justified it by explaining that they were historically significant precisely because they were important to the Victorians. Of the existing 38,607 articles, 70 per cent have been completely rewritten in the light of new research, while the remainder have been revised.
A further 13,500 articles have been newly commissioned, and these cover all fields and chronological periods in a genuine attempt to include people unfairly excluded in the earlier work. For example, women made up only 5 per cent of the old DNB; in the new work, the total is 10 per cent. Again this may not seem like much of an improvement, but it does signify a doubling of the representation and it does reflect the difficulties involved in the process. Some inclusions may strike the reader as a little odd: Karl Marx appears because he spent a significant part of his life in Britain; Voltaire appears because he was an important observer of British life; George Washington appears because he had a notable career as a British colonist before American independence. The entry for Jamie Bolger, the infant who was murdered in 1993, may seem a little strange, but few who read the article will challenge its inclusion.
Irish readers will be bemused by some revealing omissions. Presidents Hyde and Childers and former taoiseach Seán Lemass are included as "non-metropolitan figures" (code for, among other things, Irish people who had significant careers after independence in 1921); Archbishop McQuaid and former taoiseach Jack Lynch are not. Britannia, John Bull (the "fictitious epitomist of Englishness and British imperialism"), and Robin Hood all receive entries. Yet there is no Cúchulainn or, for that matter, P. O'Neill.
Many countries have their own multi-volume biographical dictionaries, but so far Ireland has not. The wait is almost over. Under the leadership of James McGuire (together with James Quinn and a team of five other editors), a Royal Irish Academy project has been underway for a number of years which will soon produce a six-volume biographical dictionary for this island. It will cover Irish men and women who had careers either in Ireland or abroad, and it will also include those non-Irish individuals whose careers influenced this island - but here the emphasis will be on the part of the career to do with Ireland. It will be at least two years before the Royal Irish Academy's Dictionary of Irish Biography is published by Cambridge University Press. But, in the meantime, the Oxford DNB will be a good starting point for those interested in Irish history.
Borrowing an idea which has been used to great effect in some other national biographies (most notably the American National Biography, published in 1999), the Oxford DNB combines certain individuals into group entries. The logic is that few can actually name a single Tolpuddle Martyr, but some may wish to read about them as a unit. There are a number of such entries, and by and large they work well. For example, there is a good entry on the Busby Babes, who perished in the Munich air disaster in 1958. The value of an article often lies in whether it has been touched by the wand of the magician, whether it can transcend its obligations to the dry facts and capture the real character of the person being described. Some articles succeed in this respect. We learn, for example, that many of the Busby Babes lodged with "Ma" Watson, who was fired by Manchester United after serving her household spam instead of turkey one Christmas morning (this was her revenge for finding her husband in bed with a maid). But far too often the magic is absent, and the articles sink under the weight of the accumulated factual detail.
For the general reader much fun can be had from using the search engine on the online site. I entered the name Sherlock Holmes and was impressed to discover 43 entries, which included articles on Joseph Bell (1837-1911), the surgeon who was considered the inspiration for the fictional detective; Nigel Bruce (1895-1953) and Basil Rathbone (1892-1967), who together did a splendid job of bringing Holmes and Watson alive on the big screen; Sir William Charles Crocker (1886-1957), a second World War diamonds investigator who was dubbed "the Sherlock Holmes of insurance"; Adam Worth (c.1844-1902), a criminal and art thief who was the model for Professor Moriarty; and, of course, an article on Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (1859-1930) himself. Piltdown Man (who is given a supposed career date of four million BC) also appears as an entry - and it is explained that this archaeological hoax fooled, among others, Conan Doyle. However, Jeremy Brett (1933-95), who reinvented Holmes on televison, is strangely absent. Whatever the reader's interest - be it politics, literature, crime, art or sport - there is much to be discovered and enjoyed.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography stands as a bridge between the gentlemanly researches of the 19th century and the rigorous professional scholarship of the 20th. It will generate plenty of debate, with arguments about who has been included, who has been excluded, and what version of the past has been presented. This is as it should be. Adictionary of national biography is more than just a reference work for scholars and the interested public. It is a reflection of where we are at the present time, the values we cherish, and the things we consider important. It is right that it should challenge, provoke, entertain, inform, occasionally irritate, and even inspire.
But, above all, it should provide reassurance. The entry on the late Colin Matthew, which also stands as a good account of the genesis of the entire project, includes the observation that for a man of such exceptional organisational powers his rooms "looked utterly chaotic to the outsider". For some reason, I found this the most reassuring thing of all.
Patrick M. Geoghegan is a lecturer in the Department of Modern History, Trinity College, Dublin. He worked full-time on the Royal Irish Academy's Dictionary of Irish Biography project, and contributed an entry to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography on Lord Carlisle (1748-1825). His book, Robert Emmet: A Life, is out in paperback
To launch the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín and Fintan O'Toole will discuss historic heroes and villains on Monday at 6.30 p.m. in Liberty Hall Theatre, Dublin (admission €5), while Richard English, Patricia Craig and Ralph McLean will discuss the topic on Tuesday at 6.30 p.m. in Queen's University, Belfast (£3)