Plutarch

1. The classical historian and essayist Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (46-120 C.E.). Often used as a byword for a biographer, to suggest that the writer is especially skilled or has other attributes associated with Plutarch.

   I must in candor admit that the Plutarch of piracy is sometimes more edifying than entertaining.

   1903, Samuel McChord Crothers, The Gentle Reader, →LCCN, →OL, page 132

   2 more examples

   I am indebted to […]those masterly pen and ink portraits of many of our deceased ministers drawn by the lamented Professor Stoever, in the Evangelical Review, whom I designated some years ago as the Plutarch of the Lutheran Church of America.

   1878, John G. Morris, Fifty Years in the Lutheran Ministry, →OL, page 11

   Some day a Plutarch, without a Plutarch's prejudice will arise, and with malice toward none but charity for all, he will write the life of the statesman, Gladstone.

   1895, Elbert Hubbard, Gladstone, →OL, page 100

plural Plutarchs

1. Any specific edition of a work by Plutarch, often specifically Plutarch's Lives

   Both these English Plutarchs are here, two folios printed at London in 1657, and they once belonged to William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, and have his book-plates.

   1895, O.A. Bierstadt, The Library of Robert Hoe, page 164