Sgt. Pepper

Bios For Everyone on the Sgt. Pepper Album Cover

By Eliot Van Buskirk October 29, 2007 | 4:32:43 PMCategories: People

If you're a Beatles fan with some time to kill, check out the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography's version of the Beatles' iconic Sgt. Pepper album cover. It lets you mouse over any person to see their name, or click them for a detailed biography.

There are some fascinating details for the trivia-oriented reader. I for one never knew W.C. Fields started as a juggler (best move: balancing 25 cigar boxes on end with a rubber ball on top), that William S. Burroughs snipped off the end of the little finger on his left hand out of heartbreak, or that Lenny Bruce was arrested for impersonating a priest to solicit donations for a fictional leper colony in Africa in order to support his stripper wife's singing career.

Kudos to whoever came up with the idea to advertise Oxford's biographies using the Sgt. Pepper album cover -- I think they also demonstrated a new way for labels to think about digital album covers.