Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (romantic novels in english .txt) 📕
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Eminent Victorians consists of four short biographies by Lytton Strachey of Victorians who were famous in their day: Cardinal Manning, a powerful cleric; Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing; Thomas Arnold, founder of the modern-day English public school style; and General Gordon, a popular officer of the British Army.
In Strachey’s day, these people were considered heroes and paragons of Victorian morality and ethics. But instead of lengthy, glowing biographies, Strachey opts for short, witty, and biting biographies that skewer their subjects. All of the subjects are portrayed with their human flaws and moral contradictions on full display, implicitly knocking down the sanctimonious visions of these former heroes (perhaps with the exception of Nightingale, who, while portrayed as an often-cold and mercilessly-driven taskmistress, nevertheless escaped with her reputation enhanced).
The biographies are not only interesting for their wit, humor, and readability, but because of the windows they open to the issues of the age. Manning’s biography occurs against the backdrop of a time of upheaval in the English Catholic church, with concepts like Papal Infallability entering the picture; Nightingale’s biography shines light on the appalling conditions of war; Arnold’s biography is a lens on the development of formal education and schools; and Gordon’s biography reveals England as an empire growing more unsteady, whose ability to influence and control faraway lands is not as certain as it might think.
Eminent Victorians took six years to write and was met with glowing reviews on its publication. It made Strachey famous and cemented his name in the list of top-tier biographers.
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- Author: Lytton Strachey
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And yet it was not with the Mahdi that the future lay. Before six months were out, in the plenitude of his power, he died, and the Khalifa Abdullahi reigned in his stead. The future lay with Major Kitchener and his Maxim-Nordenfeldt guns. Thirteen years later the Mahdi’s empire was abolished forever in the gigantic hecatomb of Omdurman; after which it was thought proper that a religious ceremony in honour of General Gordon should be held at the palace at Khartoum. The service was conducted by four chaplains—of the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist persuasions—and concluded with a performance of “Abide with Me”—the General’s favourite hymn—by a select company of Sudanese buglers. Everyone agreed that General Gordon had been avenged at last. Who could doubt it? General Gordon himself, possibly, fluttering, in some remote Nirvana, the pages of a phantasmal Bible, might have ventured on a satirical remark. But General Gordon had always been a contradictious person—even a little off his head, perhaps, though a hero; and besides, he was no longer there to contradict … At any rate, it had all ended very happily—in a glorious slaughter of 20,000 Arabs, a vast addition to the British Empire, and a step in the Peerage for Sir Evelyn Baring.
BibliographyGeneral Gordon.
Reflections in Palestine.
Letters.
Khartoum Journals.
E. Hake. The Story of Chinese Gordon.
H. W. Gordon. Events in the Life of C. G. Gordon.
D. C. Boulger. Life of General Gordon.
Sir W. Butler. General Gordon.
Rev. R. H. Barnes and C. E. Brown. Charles George Gordon: A Sketch.
A. Bioves. Un Grand Aventurier.
Li Hung Chang. Memoirs.2
Colonel Chaille-Long. My Life in Four Continents.
Lord Cromer. Modern Egypt.
Sir R. Wingate. Mahdiism and the Sudan.
Sir R. Slatin. Fire and Sword in the Sudan.
J. Ohrwalder. Ten Years of Captivity in the Mahdi’s Camp.
C. Neufeld. A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.
Wilfrid Blunt.
A Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt.
Gordon at Khartoum.
Winston Churchill. The River War.
F. Power. Letters from Khartoum.
Lord Morley. Life of Gladstone.
George W. Smalley. Mr. Gladstone. Harper’s Magazine, 1898.
B. Holland. Life of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire.
Lord Fitzmaurice. Life of the Second Earl Granville.
S. Gwynn and Gertrude Tuckwell. Life of Sir Charles Dilke.
Arthur Rimbaud. Lettres.
G. F. Steevens. With Kitchener to Khartoum.
Endnotes“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.” ↩
The authenticity of the diary contained in this book has been disputed, notably by Mr. J. O. P. Bland in his Li Hung Chang. (Constable, 1917.) ↩
ColophonEminent Victorians
was published in 1918 by
Lytton Strachey.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2000 by
Martin Adamson
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at
Google Books.
The cover page is adapted from
Henry Edward Manning,
a painting completed in 1882 by
George Frederic Watts.
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League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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