Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (1918) - Not Even Past

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Almost a century after its publication, Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians remains a landmark work in the field of biography. The author chooses four notable personalities – Henry Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and Charles George Gordon – and uses their lives to illuminate the broader history of Victorian England. Unlike previous biographers of the time, Strachey consciously rejects romanticized images of May 06, 2020 these figures. Instead, he presents the facts of their lives “dispassionately, impartially, and without ulterior More from The Public Historian intentions.” These mythic characters take on human proportions and they prove all the more interesting for their ambition, pettiness, hypocrisy, and peculiarity. BOOKS Cardinal Manning, the leader of the Catholic Church in England, becomes a merciless if conflicted self-promoter. America for Americans: A History of The Crimean War nurse Nightingale is a hard-bitten Xenophobia in the United States by health advocate haunted by memories of dying young Erika Lee (2019) men. Arnold appears less the champion of public school reform than an intellectual theocrat. Finally, Strachey calls into question the heroism of General Gordon’s death during the Mahdist Revolt in the Sudan; far from seeming a great strategist, the military commander parades across the pages as a tempestuous zealot, “a fighter, an enthusiast, a bold adventurer.” Strachey’s critical accounts shocked his Edwardian audience, but contemporary readers will find them fascinating for their candid portrayals of the eccentricities and passions that motivated four remarkable figures.

The brief biographical sketches also offer glimpses into the history of the era. The Oxford Movement’s

introduction of ritual and ceremony into the Anglican tradition frames Manning’s conversion to April 20, 2020 Catholicism, while Gordon represents a microcosm of European imperialism in Africa and Asia. The remaining subjects provide Strachey with the opportunity to investigate restrictive upper-class mores and More Books the evolution of reform movements in British society. The interactions of these four distinguished Victorians with characters like the influential theologian John Henry Newman and Prime Minister William Gladstone go still further and elevate the biographies to the level of high politics. As such, the author DIGITAL HISTORY provides an accessible narrative that emphasizes the role of individuals in shaping the recent history of Great Britain. Más de 72: Digital Archive Review

https://notevenpast.org/eminent-victorians-1918/[7/7/2020 10:37:56 AM] Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (1918) - Not Even Past Strachey’s book heralded a new age of biographical study, but his fluid prose and charming style account for the work’s ability to transcend its time and still speak to us today.

March 16, 2020