Explore the interactive Sergeant Pepper cover here

The most recognisable album cover of all time, Peter Blake’s 1967 collage for Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, has become an interactive encyclopaedia, thanks to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and is exclusively available to Times Online readers this week.

To celebrate the album’s 40th anniversary, the Oxford DNB, in partnership with the American National Biography, has enabled readers to click through to its biographies of all the famous figures featuring on the cover, including Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe.

The Beatles commissioned Sir Peter Blake to assemble all the people in history they would have liked to see in an imaginary audience. Stan Laurel, Marlene Dietrich, Oscar Wilde and Karl Marx are among the famous faces.

Times Online users have exclusive access to this feature until Monday, when it can be found on the Oxford DNB site.

A Summer of Love feature, with biographies of performers including Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon and Otis Redding, will also be available free of charge until August.

The Oxford DNB has biographies of more than 56,000 people who shaped history. No living person is included. Access is available free in most public libraries across Britain or by subscription.

Subscription offer

Times Online readers are eligible for a 20 per cent discount on three-month and 12-month personal subscriptions, starting at £40 (plus VAT) for three months.

Get your reduced rate subscription. Just enter the promotional code TIMESDNB.

Please note that this offer is not available to readers living in North and South America. The offer ends on June 24, 2007. American Express cards are not accepted. Discounts are not available through BT Click and Buy.

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• 10 things you should avoid in hospital (unless there really is no option)
• Exclusive: Philip Pullman's essential reading list
• The White War by Mark Thompson