Last November, New York Review Books published Ruth Scurr’s John Aubrey: My Own Life. Aubrey, who died in 1697, is remembered for his Brief Lives, a collection of short biographies with a candor and color that enlarged the possibilities of the genre. Scurr has assembled an “autobiography” for Aubrey from remnants of his letters, manuscripts, and books, setting his sensitivities against the turmoil of Restoration-era England. He emerges as an empathetic, surprisingly modern figure. Below, Lucas Adams illustrates some of his favorite entries from My Own Life. 

Lucas Adams is an editor at New York Review Comics. See more of his work here.