Product Description

In "The Victorians", Jeremy Paxman offers his personal take on the most important and influential period of our national past. Using the paintings of the era as his starting point - in his view, the one mode of Victorian art yet to be rescued from indifference - Paxman explores themes of family, urban life, industry, empire, and imagination to uncover truths (and explode some myths) about Victorian Britain. To Paxman, these paintings were the television of their day, immensely popular visual narratives that attracted crowds by the hundreds of thousands: a single picture show featuring Elizabeth Butler's Balaclava (depicting survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade) drew 50,000 viewers, some of them openly weeping. The Victorians shows how artists like Butler, William Powell Frith, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Luke Fildes, and Ford Madox Brown were chronicling a world changing before their eyes, and his overview ranges across the whole of Victorian life and culture: from high gothic architecture to the birth of the football league, from the novels of Dickens to the technological marvels of Brunel. Published to coincide with a landmark BBC series, "The Victorians" is an opinionated, informed, surprising, and hugely enthusiastic appraisal of the birth of modern Britain - a glorious reminder of how the Victorians made us who we are today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49521 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

About the Author
Jeremy Paxman was born in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge. He is an award-winning journalist and the author of Friends in High Places: Who Runs Britain?, Fish, Fishing and the Meaning of Life, The English, The Political Animal and On Royalty. He is currently presenter of Newsnight and University Challenge.

Customer Reviews

Revealing picture of Victorian life
This is a wonderfully revealing picture of Victorian life. Vast tableaux, such as those in the work of Frith for example, are sensitively explored for their cultural detail and sociological implication. Paxman's undoubted enthusiasm brings the paintings surprisingly alive, thereby offering greater understanding of the circumstances affecting men, women and children of the period, and one can realise just how deeply embedded are the Victorians in our own being.
The book obviously complements the TV programme, but they are not necessary to each other. Being able to spend time quietly with the works of art and their associated commentary here is actually more satisfying.

The Victorians
Jeremy Paxman's The Victorians is stuffed with famous and obscure paintings,all documented by title,artist and gallery,below the work,making the book incredibly easy to read. No flicking around to see the subject! The written work is learned but fast-flowing,revealing Paxman's knowledge and liking for Victorian Art,pithy rather than maudling. His research is nationwide,with works often pulled from the industrial cities, whose wealth reflected the surges in Victorian life.
A well documented passion, from an "unikely" source,

The Victorians - A personal view by an informed enthusiast.
Having attended Mr Paxman's book launch at Ely Cathedral recently I am now a confirmed fan. Mr Paxman knows his subject inside out and his passion was evident from the start. An excellent accompaniment to the TV series, "The Victorians" is an entertaining and informative work.