Eminent Victorians
Chapter 1 of 23 Preface and Cardinal Manning, Chapter 1
0:00
20:12
- Running time
- 12 h 3 min
- Language
- English
- Read by
- Margaret Espaillat
Chapters
About this recording
On Modern Library's list of 100 Best Non-Fiction books, "Eminent Victorians" marked an epoch in the art of biography; it also helped to crack the old myths of high Victorianism and to usher in a new spirit by which chauvinism, hypocrisy and the stiff upper lip were debunked. In it, Strachey cleverly exposes the self-seeking ambitions of Cardinal Manning and the manipulative, neurotic Florence Nightingale; and in his essays on Dr Arnold and General Gordon, his quarries are not only his subjects but also the public-school system and the whole structure of nineteenth-century liberal values.