Eminent Victorians

Lytton Strachey's classic work "Eminent Victorians" was an assault on the Victorian Age and its values. In choosing four key figures, Cardinal Manning, Dr Arnold of Rugby, Florence Nightingale and General Gordon, Strachey conducted a masterly hatchet job on four key representatives of their age. His book was an instant best-seller and has been in print ever since. But now, the mood has changed. Victorian studies is booming. Scholars are looking again at the Victorian age and are reassessing some of its more notable figures. The text of "Eminent Victorians" is printed here in its entirety, but there are new critical afterwords by scholars demonstrating how lopsided was Strachey's judgement and representing his subjects in fresh light. David Newsome writes on Cardinal Manning; John Pollock on General Gordon; Terence Copley on Dr Arnold and Mark Bostridge on Florence Nightingale. Each has examined Strachey's own manuscript notes for his book and is an expert on recent scholarship. Textual notes and critical apparatus are also included along with many unusual and little known illustrations.
Paul Levy, editor of Strachey's correspondence, writes the introduction and the book carries a foreword by the last of the great Bloomsbury Group, Frances Partridge.