Product Description

William Ewart Gladstone was both the most charismatic and the most extraordinary of Victorians. His huge public career - in and out of office from 1834 to 1894 and four times prime minister - was consistently controversial and dramatic. His private life was a most curious blend of happiness and temptation. His Christian faith held the extremes of his character in sufficient harmony to avoid disintegration and to produce one of the most powerful political personalities in British history. H. C. G. Matthew's writings on Gladstone are generally acknowledged to have transformed understanding of the `Grand Old Man' of British Politics, and indeed his whole age. Appearing first as Introductions to his definitive edition of The Gladstone Diaries, they have been revised and made available in this volume, collected together in paperback for the first time. Gladstone 1809-1874: 'It deserves to become a classic of the genre' Illustrated London News 'For any aficionado of the high politics - and low life - of the nineteenth century, this book is a must' Observer 'the most sensitive and informed insight to date' English Historical Review Gladstone 1875-1898 (winner of the Wolfson History Prize 1995): 'Rarely can a single scholar have re-mapped a whole historical territory so grandly as H. C. G. Matthew has done in the case of Gladstone in particular and of Victorian politics and culture in general' English Historical Review

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #594366 in Books
• Published on: 1997-10-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 744 pages

About the Author
H. C. G. Matthew was Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. He is the editor of the 14-volume edition of The Gladstone Diaries, and of the New Dictionary of National Biography. Died 1999.

Customer Reviews

Invaluable examination of the 'G.O.M.'
This book is essential for understanding the political career of one of the most remarkable and complex figures of Victorian Britain. There are few better equipped for this task; as the long-time editor of Gladstone’s extensively detailed diaries, Matthew was immersed in the minutiae of the man’s life. This book, a collection of the introductions to the published volumes of the series, is the ultimate product of these labours.

The result is not a biography in the traditional sense, nor is it meant to be. Matthew does not bother to cover Gladstone’s life from event to event. Instead, he provides an intellectual portrait of the man, using thematic chapters to chart the development of his ideas and how they were applied throughout his public career. Though a challenging book which assumes that the reader has a familiarity with the events of the era, in the end it is an enormously rewarding read, one that offers an invaluable examination of the man and his times.

Packed with knowledge but on occassion TOO analytic
That HCG Matthew is a towering authority on Gladstone was not in doubt before this publication, but it is an established fact now that the book is out. However, it does at times appear that Matthew is out to prove it not by measured analysis of Gladstonian action, but by judging each of Gladstone's actions as being in some kind of grand theme which the man himself knew but which few guessed at.

This cannot be right. Gladstone split the Liberal Party, an organisation that he loved dearly, over his apparent views on Ireland. Whilst Matthew suggests that Gladstone all along intended to fly the "Hawarden Kite" as he had come to view it as the best thing for the Irish people, he gives little or no space to the alternative theories. For example, Gladstone may have altered his views to pro-Home Rule after the press became convinced that he had already, just to save his son the embarrassment of admitting he was wrong. Or he could have done so to see just how much personal loyalty he could command from the Liberals, perhaps in order to prevent Queen Victoria from appointing a Tory-Whig coalition in 1886. Much more likely still is that Gladstone adopted Home Rule to force Joseph Chamberlain - with his dangerous views on protective tariffs - out of the party which was the bastion of Free Trade.

Matthew's overall direction is very good, but at times it reads too much like an undergraduate essay. The constant repetition of phrases such as "as we shall see" and "as has been seen" suggest at times he is pushing for the word limit rather than drawing together Gladstonian threads with any real motive.

Furthermore, whilst some readers may be aware and have a good understanding of Gladstone's life, others may not - this is not the book for them, although it is nevertheless the most informative and thought-provoking on the market.

I read it, and I liked it, but it was sometimes tough going, and I felt that the alternative arguments were not duly considered - a mistake which the Grand Old Man himself would never have made!