I have undertaken the responsible task of editing a new biography of Britannica.

The dictionary was very much a kind of Victorian project spreading knowledge out I suppose it's

their equivalent of the internet. Such a book is much needed and I am anxious to

obtain help from all who are able and willing to give it. I told you I was trouble.

The dictionary of national biography

feeds into the need that people have

for celebrity gossip, but it completely turns it around and presents it in a more

academic way so that we know the psychology behind our favorite public figures.

I love the legendary personages or creatures of romance like Robin Hood and Britannia.

I like the odd ankles. There's one wonderful article where the man is described as

Benedictine monk, sea captain and pirate. There's another woman in Wales who is described as a harpist and wrestler.

The editor of such a work must, by the necessity of the case be autocratic. He will do his best to be a

considerate autocrat. Leslie Stephen, the first editor of the Dictionary of National

biography or Dn B wrote that in the Athenian magazine in

December 1882.

I'm David Canadine and according to Stephen I'm the latest in the autocrat line because I'm the current editor of the

dictionary now known as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography or the ODMB.

In these two programs I want to tell you the story of the dictionary and its place in the brave new digital world.

But above all it's a chance to hear about some of the people whose lives are amongst the 60,000 or so we've recorded over the years, lives that have made

an impact around the globe.

And just in case you're wondering, we've already heard reference to the very modern in the figure of singer Amy Winehouse,

and the gloriously bizarre in the form of the Benedictine monk and pirate Eustus Busquet.

...