Eminent Victorians (1918)

This book was undoubtedly daring and iconoclastic when it was published. It skewers some Victorian sacred cows while exposing the worst characteristics of the Victorians, dourly cruel religiosity, ruthlessly cruel ambition, and stupidly cruel hypocrisy. The prose is deft and devastating. ( )

I read "Eminent Victorians" a few years ago, but I don't think I understood why it was considered an interesting or notable history. After this rereading, I think I might get it. It's not the biographical data it contains that makes it important: it's bibliography isn't exactly extensive, and, while Florence Nightingale is likely to be the only figure here that is still familiar to modern readers, all four of its subjects were extremely famous in their own day. In witty, strategically understated prose, Strachey argues that these four personages owed a great deal of their success to less-than-admirable character traits: a superficial morality that masked powerful ambitions, a constant tension between self-promotion and self-abnegation, a talent for organization and bureaucratic maneuvering, and an overweening self-confidence and, sometimes, an astonishing disregard for facts. I was, for example, amazed to learn that for all the work she did in sanitation and medical training, Ms. Nightingale wasn't convinced by Pasteur's germ theory. It should probably be noted that Strachey might have been writing with an agenda in mind; he belonged to a social set that sought to unmask what they saw as Victorian hypocrisy. Still, the portraits he presents here are largely convincing. He seems to have a talent for isolating the most revealing bits of the mountains of personal memoranda and personal docuementation that each of his subjects left behind. In any event, his book still serves as a valuable historical document: reading the self-lacerating diary entries of the thinkers involved in the Oxford Movement, or bits of General Gordon's manic, messianic account of the siege of Khartoum might tell you more about the Victorian mindset than an armful of Trollope. Especially recommended to those with a special interest in the Victorian period or in the Modernists who sought to overcome their Victorian origins and seek a new path. ( )

Very well-written, very readable. ( )

Although it sometimes comes at the expense of clarity, there is some artful writing here. Some examples:

On public school education:
"A system of anarchy tempered by despotism. A life in which licensed barbarism was mingled with the daily and hourly study of the niceties of Ovidian verse."

On Monsignor Talbot:
He could apply flattery with so unsparing a hand that even princes of the church found it sufficient."

On Dr. Hall:
"A rough terrier of a man who had worried his way to the top of his profession."

On Cardinal Newman:
"With a sinking heart, he realized at last the painful truth: it was not the nature of his views, it was his having views at all that was objectionable."

If it is sardonic wit you want, you will find it here, in these four essays. Whether you will find these particular Victorians interesting is another matter. General Gordon, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Thomas Arnold, and Cardinal Manning are not as relevant today as they once were. But these psychological essays created quite a stir in their time, and even changed the course of the art of biography. ( )

I think a lot of the ground-breaking irreverence and wit of Eminent Victorians was lost on me as a 21st century reader where our leaders and heroes are often presented warts and all. No one is so revered that he or she is not subject to some sort of ridicule and in fact I'd go so far as to say that dwelling on someone's faults tends to be the norm. At any rate, it was an informative read and I did find myself chuckling here and there at the author's cheek. I found the section on Florence Nightengale most interesting. ( )