author
John Earle
d. 1665
Best remembered for a sharp, witty portrait of everyday life in 17th-century England, this Anglican cleric wrote with humor, observation, and an eye for human character. His most famous book, Micro-cosmographie, has kept his name alive long after his years as a bishop and royal chaplain.
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About the author
Born around 1601 in York, John Earle was an English churchman, writer, and translator who studied at Oxford and went on to build a career in both scholarship and the Church. He became closely connected with royalist circles and later served as chaplain to Charles II.
Earle is chiefly remembered for Micro-cosmographie (1628), a lively collection of character sketches that captures the manners, habits, and social types of his age. Its short portraits are clever and often funny, but they also reveal a keen understanding of ordinary people and the world around him.
Later in life he rose to high office in the Church, becoming Bishop of Worcester and then Bishop of Salisbury. He died on November 17, 1665, at Oxford, during the plague years, leaving behind a reputation not only as a bishop but as one of the most memorable prose character-writers of the 17th century.