Eminent Victorians

Eminent Victorians is a book written by Lytton Strachey, which was first published in 1918. It is a collection of biographies of four famous people from the Victorian era: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and General Gordon. The book is known for its satirical and critical approach towards the individuals it portrays, as well as towards the Victorian values and ideals they represented. Strachey challenges the traditional views of these figures, presenting them as flawed and complex human beings rather than as heroic icons. In the first biography, Strachey examines the life and career of Cardinal Manning, a prominent figure in the Catholic Church who converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism. Strachey portrays Manning as a manipulative and power-hungry individual who used his religious authority to advance his own interests. The second biography focuses on Florence Nightingale, a pioneer of modern nursing who became famous for her work during the Crimean War. Strachey portrays Nightingale as a demanding and inflexible person who was obsessed with her work and often clashed with her colleagues. The third biography is about Thomas Arnold, a famous educator and headmaster of Rugby School. Strachey presents Arnold as a stern and authoritarian figure who imposed his own vision of morality and discipline on his students, but also as a man of great intellectual and cultural achievements. The final biography is about General Gordon, a British military hero who died during the siege of Khartoum in Sudan. Strachey portrays Gordon as a deeply religious and eccentric man who was obsessed with his own destiny and who ultimately met a tragic end. Overall, Eminent Victorians is a witty and provocative book that challenges the conventional wisdom about some of the most famous figures of the Victorian era. It is considered a landmark of modern biography and a classic of English literature.1918. The famous biographer of the Victorians, Strachey was one of the leading members of the Bloomsbury group. Eminent Victorians is a groundbreaking work of biography that raised the genre to the level of high art. It replaced reverence with skepticism and Strachey's wit, iconoclasm, and narrative skill liberated the biographical enterprise. His portraits of Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and General Gordon changed perceptions of the Victorians for a generation. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.