The ''Dictionary of Australian Biography'', published in 1949, is a reference work by

Percival Serle Percival Serle (18 July 1871 – 16 December 1951) was an Australian biographer and bibliographer. Early life Serle was born in Elsternwick, Victoria to English parents who had migrated as children and for many years worked in a life assurance ...

containing information on notable people associated with

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

. With approximately a thousand entries, the book took more than twenty years to complete. Published by

Angus and Robertson Angus & Robertson (A&R) is a major Australian bookseller, publisher and printer. As book publishers, A&R has contributed substantially to the promotion and development of Australian literature.Alison, Jennifer (2001). "Publishers and editors: A ...

, the dictionary was compiled as two volumes, Volume 1: A-K; and Volume 2: L-Z. The book contains 1,030 biographies of Australians, or people who were closely connected with Australia, who died before the end of 1942. According to Serle in his preface:

Format

The average length of the biographies is about 640 words. Serle classified them roughly into the following twelve groups: Of the above profiles, the number of women included was 42 or 4 percent of the biographies. Forty-seven percent of those included in the book were born in England, 27 percent in Australia, 12 percent Scotland, 8 percent Ireland, 1 percent Wales and remaining 5 percent were from the rest of the world which included twelve from the United States, nine from Germany, and six from New Zealand.

Other biographies

Prior to its publication similar Australian reference works included: * * * * Later editions were published as ''

Who's Who in Australia ''Who's Who in Australia'' (''WWIA'') is an Australian biographical dictionary first published by Fred Johns in 1906 as ''Johns's Notable Australians''. It is used as a resource for summary information on prominent Australians. ''WWIA'' is part of ...

''. * * Subsequently, other Australian biographical dictionaries have been released including the ''

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

'' from 1966 and ''

''.

References

External links

* Contains details of people who died before 1942. {{Authority control 1949 non-fiction books Reference works in the public domain Australian Biography, Dictionary of Angus & Robertson books