Died 1828 | ||
There are apocryphal biographies in the first edition (1885–1900) of the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), a major work on historical biography related to the United Kingdom. In other words there is a biography that presents a life of a person asserted to have existed, but (in the light of later scholarship) the evidence for the person having lived has become regarded as tenuous or non-existent.
Contents
Examples are in s:Category:Apocryphal biographies, based on the updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), where the corresponding article casts serious doubt on the DNB assertions.
Kirkman Finlay
Kirkman Finlay—supposed: (c. 1802–1828) was an alleged Scottish philhellene.
The DNB has an article on this man, but more modern scholarship refutes its credibility. Monica Clough in the 21st century ODNB explains how the original source for the DNB probably confused fact with fiction and concludes by citing and quoting C. R. Fay (1951):
Perhaps, unless new evidence is found, more reliable than the obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine of April 1828 which called him into being, ‘the second quite imaginary Kirkman Finlay of the Dictionary of National Biography “who was neither killed in Greece nor born anywhere”’ can be safely buried.
Robert Bruce (died 1094?)
Robert de Brus [Bruce] supposed nobleman, based on late medieval lists of those who fought at Hastings, which are wholly unreliable.
Macduff ‘thane’ of Fife
"A half or wholly mythical personage." If he is not a literary invention, then he represents a supporter of Malcolm III of Scotland, descended from Dub, King of Scotland.