Welcome to Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Learn more

Information for Librarians

What’s New: September 2024

This month’s update, introduced by David Cannadine, reviews the ODNB on its 20th anniversary. First published in September 2004, the ODNB has since added 8000 biographies, and notably completed 20 annual releases of recent lives, which now cover 2001 to 2020, creating an important national record.

Read the introduction 

Browse our 20th anniversary gallery wall

Matthew, (Henry) Colin Gray (1941–1999), historian and founding editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Colin Matthew, born in Inverness and brought up in Edinburgh, spent his academic career in Oxford, where he edited the Gladstone Diaries. In 1992 he was appointed founding editor of the New Dictionary of National Biography (later the ODNB) which was completed in 2004 ‘to the specification and timetable he laid down’.

Find out more

 

News

SEPTEMBER 19, 2024

20th Anniversary of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

To celebrate the ODNB turning 20, we’re sharing thirty influential lives from the British Isles spanning nearly two millennia.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2024

What’s New: September 2024

Welcome to the 114th update of the Oxford DNB, which marks the twentieth anniversary of the Dictionary’s first publication in September 2004.

AUGUST 8, 2024

What’s New: August 2024

Welcome to the 113th update of the Oxford DNB, which adds sixteen new articles and seven portrait likenesses. Entries in this release have a special focus on the lives of early modern noblewomen in Britain.