Eminent Victorians: Four Brilliant Biographical Portraits of Victorian Power, Reform, Education, and Empire

Eminent Victorians is Lytton Strachey's brilliant, irreverent dismantling of four heroic Victorian reputations: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Thomas Arnold, and General Gordon. First published in 1918, the book helped change the art of biography by rejecting solemn admiration in favour of compression, irony, psychological insight, and sharp literary judgement. Strachey did not write dutiful memorials. He wrote portraits designed to expose ambition, self-deception, moral certai...