Starting in the nineteenth century, scholars across the Arab world set out to propel the established genre of the biographical dictionary into new directions. While varied in purpose, these newfangled compendia shared a commitment to documenting the lives of exceptional figures—the princepes of the modern age. Influenced by changes in the book market, evolving aesthetic preferences, and technological advancements, the development of the modern biographic dictionary saw figures such as Jurjī Zaydān (1861-1914), Ilyās Zakhūra (fl. 1897), and Tawfīq Iskārūs (1871-1942) tailoring the medium to their specific needs. This emergent genre was often enriched with illustrations and distinguished by a more selective approach to its vitae, challenging and yet continuing the earlier tradition of the ṭabaqāt (literally, “generations” or “classes”) and related hagiographic genres (e.g. manāqib and siyar). By centering the biographic dictionary, a central medium of intellectual discourse in the postclassical period, this paper proposes to study the Nahḍa as a “biographical age.” I develop the argument that the emergence of the Nahḍa was intricately tied to the renewed popularity of the biography. While drawing on the form and conceptual vocabulary of previous ages, the modern biographical dictionary enabled the propagation of new intellectual genealogies, the typecasting of effendi subjectivities, and the promoting of underlying political programs. My paper focuses on the work of Jurjī Zaydān, surveying key works in his literary and scholarly corpus, including his "Tarājim mashāhīr al-Sharq" (1903). Zaydān’s multifaceted career as a journalist, novelist, historian, educator, and linguist has garnered significant attention; however, his contributions as a biographer, which encompass a notable cross-section of his intellectual pursuits, remain largely overlooked. I ask how Zaydān’s biographical contributions (broadly defined) reflects or challenges prevalent perceptions of the Nahḍa. To enrich my findings, I study trends in the works of lesser-known authors, especially Ilyās Zakhūra ("Akābir al-rijāl," 1897) and Tawfīq Iskārūs ("Nawābigh al-Aqbāṭ," 1910). Finally, I explore how the Nahḍa as a biographical age helps us rethink the intellectual legacy of early Western scholarship as emblematized by Albert Hourani (1915-1993) in his "Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age" (1962).