Eminent Victorians: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold, General Gordon.

STRACHEY, Lytton.

$750.00

Item Number: 129185

London: Chatto and Windus, 1960.

Finely bound example of the work that placed Strachey firmly in the top rank of biographers. Octavo, bound in full crushed red morocco by Sangorski and Sutcliffe with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, double gilt ruling and fleuron cornerpieces to the front and rear panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In fine condition.

With the publication of Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey set out to breathe life into the Victorian era for future generations to read. Up until that point, as Strachey remarked in the preface, Victorian biographies had been "as familiar as the cortège of the undertaker, and wear the same air of slow, funereal barbarism." Strachey defied the tradition of "two fat volumes....of undigested masses of material" and took aim at the four venerated figures. The work's fame came to rest on the irreverence and wit Strachey brought to bear on his subjects who had until then been regarded as heroes. Upon publication, the book established Strachey in the literary world and placed him firmly in the top rank of biographers.