Product Description

Eminent Victorians marked an epoch in the art of biography; it also helped to crack the old myths of high Victorianism and to usher in a new spirit by which chauvinism, hypocrisy and the stiff upper lip were debunked. In it Strachey cleverly exposes the self-seeking ambitions of Cardinal Manning and the manipulative, neurotic Florence Nightingale; and in his essays on Dr Arnold and General Gordon his quarries are not only his subjects but also the public-school system and the whole structure of nineteenth-century liberal values.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #184482 in Books
• Published on: 1989-10-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
Giles Lytton Strachey, the son of General Sir Richard Strachey, F.R.S., was born in 1880. He showed a gift for writing from his earliest youth. After leaving Cambridge, where he was at Trinity College, in 1905, he became known in literary circles in London for his essays and book reviews; for two years he was a regular contributor to the Spectator. In 1912 he published his first book, Landmarks in French Literature. This caused no sensation, and gained very little recognition till after the publication of Eminent Victorians in 1918, which was an immediate and spectacular success, and of Queen Victoria in 1921. These two books on Victorian England made him famous, at once securing for him a positions as biographer and stylist which the ensuing years have served to consolidate. In 1928 Elizabeth and Essex appeared, followed in 1931 by Portraits in Miniature. Lytton Strachey died in 1932. Much of his outstanding work as a literary critic was included in a collection of studied under the title Books and Characters in 1922 and in a posthumous volume, Characters and Commentaries.

Customer Reviews

Strachey debunks Victorian myths: brilliant and dazzling !
In the preface of "Eminent Victorians" Lytton Stracheys affirms his contemporaries could not write the history of victorianism because they know it too much. And indeed Strachey appears to know "too much" about an era which is finished but still lingers on in Edwardian and Georgian squeamishness. Writing in 1921, Strachey is intent of getting rid of this cumbersome Victorian heritage, hence his fierce, ironical blows at a few select personalities. This methods enables him to throw light into hidden places, to expose the world of vice and corruption, the inner rotten core which is hidden by the high-flung discourses of High Victorianism. Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale and General Gordon are the four emblematic, nearly iconic characters of an ambiguous hypocritical society. Strachey portrays Cardinal Manning as a cunning self-seeking man, using the Churches - the Church of England and later the Catholic Church - as a ladder for his own career. The mythic Florence Nightingale appears in a crude light, as a psychotic authoritarian leader. Through Dr Arnold, the Master and reformer of Rugby, Strachey exposes all the violence and hidden cruelty of the public school system. "The last days of General Gordon" show the reverse side of the imperial myth - in its most appalling aspects. There's something terrifing in these insights into the secret lives of such celebrated personalities. "Eminent Victorians" is a challenging, compelling essay, all the more so as the life of each character is dealt with briefly, concision being for Strachey an essential quality for a biographer. This very conciseness, added to an inimitable style, witty and full of understatement, gives the essay even more satirical brilliancy - thus it is delightful food for thought.

Engaging and mischievously subversive potted biographies
This is the book that allegedly turned biography into an art form. Consensus appears to be that Strachey was both inaccurate and biased, but unignorably brilliant. His portraits (of Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and General Gordon) are witty and lively, audaciously written from some place of lofty detachment verging on disdain. One can imagine that surviving elder Victorians (it came out in 1918) would have spluttered "How DARE he!" over their morning coffee. Most striking to this reader was the degree to which the life of each of his victims was distorted by religion.