Eminent Victorians

One should rather read Lytton Strachey’s ‘Eminent Victorians’ if one is interested to gain an insight into how Strachey dismounts with relish Victorian heroes and values. My motivation to read this book has been generated from my interest in the Bloomsbury Group, which the eccentric Lytton Strachey......more

It’s not too hard to see that when this book exploded into the drawing rooms of 1918 it left its readers reeling from shock – four of the high and mighty big shot revered names of the Victorian period which had just ended were given a subtle but thorough debunking – the Lady with the Lamp turns out......more

This book was a rocking good read. It is very well written, and hilarious in parts. People have told me (either with glee or with a wag of the finger) that Strachey "takes the piss" out of Victorians in this book, but these people have never read the book. Waspish as his writing is, it is never (at......more

In this classic book, Strachey deconstructs four heroes of Victorian England with acid wit and brutal directness. Cardinal Manning, a man of Catholic integrity, becomes a scheming power player; Florence Nightingale, a heroine driven by ruthless demons; Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby school, a moralist p......more

Although it sometimes comes at the expense of clarity, there is some artful writing here. Some examples: On public school education: "A system of anarchy tempered by despotism. A life in which licensed barbarism was mingled with the daily and hourly study of the niceties of Ovidian verse." On Monsig......more