biographical dictionary

Biographical dictionaries are reference collections that compile facts about prominent individuals, both living and deceased. These collections are distinct from literary biographies and include national dictionaries like the Dictionary of National Biography and the Dictionary of American Biography. They also encompass directories of living persons, such as Who's Who and Who's Who in America?, which often rely on self-reported data. Specialized biographical dictionaries also exist for specific fields like science or politics. The earliest specialized encyclopaedia, the Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon, focused on biography in the mid-18th century.123