Eminent Victorians

First published in 1918, this book consists of four biographical essays on Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold of Rugby, and General Gordon. Strachey uses letters, memoirs, and official lives to puncture the pious portraits of the previous generation, showing ambition, neurosis, and accident beside public virtue. The pieces are satirical narrative rather than comprehensive lives. Together they form an argument about Victorian authority in church, nursing, education, and empire, conducted through four case studies of people the nineteenth century had agreed to revere. The method is selective, ironic, and aimed at the legend around each figure.

Bound in red buckram cover blocked with a design in black. Pale blue endleaves printed in black, reproducing the first page of Strachey's manuscript. Brown slipcase.