Biographical Dictionaries

Biography collected in dictionary form reaches its highest quality in what is known as national biography, collected sketches of distinguished people in the history of a nation. Most countries have produced one or more national biographies—in fact, it is hard to find a country without one.

American national biographies come in various shapes and sizes, but there is only one of real quality: the Dictionary of American Biography. While some of the others provide certain desirable details, such as portraits or more obscure subjects, the DAB is the best scholarly set, with signed arti­cles and bibliographies, on the order of the British Dictionary of National Biography. The DAB is a 21-volume set of 13,600 alphabetical biographies on notable (but dead) Americans. The original set was published between 1928 and 1937 by Scribner's under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies, and since then four supplements have been added. Two other sets—Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography and the Na­tional Cyclopaedia of American Biography—must be used with care. Apple-ton's includes portraits and facsimiles of autographs but also a number of imaginary subjects (see Margaret C. Schindler, "Fictitious Biography," American Historical Review, vol. 42, July, 1937). The National Cyclopaedia was compiled from questionnaires sent to family members, so that vanity often won out over accuracy in many of the sketches. While the fifty-three-volume National Cyclopaedia is the largest and most comprehensive American set, it is also the most difficult to use. It is not arranged al­phabetically; in fact, it is not arranged at all. George Washington comes first, but after him the arrangement is wholly haphazard, and it is neces­sary to use the index to find biographies.

Biographical dictionaries focusing on Connecticut subjects fall into the nine categories listed below. In all of these categories there are a few collections which were obviously inspired by a sense of patriotism and adula­tion. In paying homage, these publications—sometimes called "mug" books because they often include portraits—tend to exaggerate the sub­jects' attributes. This is not to say that mug books are useless; they are full of valuable biographical and historical material, but their tone need not be taken very seriously.

The following titles are arranged into categories merely for the sake of convenience. Some titles can fit into several categories, and others defy categorization. Biographical dictionaries with genealogical emphasis have been omitted.