Four irreverent, debunking short biographies of Victorian icons like Florence Nightingale. Strachey's book that reinvented the art of biography.
Books mentioned in Eminent Victorians (15)
Regeneration: “My brother has just published a book called "Regeneration", which all my friends are reading and highly extolling; it has a very contrary effect to what he would desire on my mind.”
The History of England by Tobias Smollett: “a child who, at the age of three, had been presented by his father, as a reward for proficiency in his studies, with the twenty-four volumes of Smollett's History of England?”
Das Leben Jesu by David Friedrich Strauss: “Dr. Arnold, who had held up to scorn and execration Strauss's Leben Jesu without reading it.”
Scripture Promises by Samuel Clarke: “next morning, every member of the Cabinet would receive a copy of Dr. Samuel Clarke's Scripture Promises.”
Tracts for the Times: “Then the Tracts for the Times were started under Newman's editorship, and the Movement was launched upon the world.”
Vie de Jesus by Ernest Renan: “That the mellifluous author of the Vie de Jesus should have determined to end his days in the depths of Africa”
Notes on Nursing by Florence Nightingale: “The author of "Notes on Nursing"--that classical compendium of the besetting sins of the sisterhood, drawn up with the detailed acrimony, the vindictive relish, of a Swift--now spent long hours in composing sympathetic Addresses to Probationers, whom she petted and wept over in turn.”
Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes: “the pages of "Tom Brown's Schooldays" show us what was no doubt the normal condition of affairs under Dr. Arnold”
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: “He drew up elaborate tables, after the manner of Robinson Crusoe, with the reasons for and against his acceptance of the post:”
A Commentary on the Whole Bible by Thomas Scott: “he eagerly perused the Priceless Diamond, Scott's Commentaries, and The Remains of the Rev. R. McCheyne. 'No novels or worldly books,' he wrote to his sister, 'come up to the Commentaries of Scott”
Dialogues by Plato: “She found such sentiments helpful, underlining them in blue pencil; and, in return, she assisted her friend with a long series of elaborate comments upon the Dialogues of Plato, most of which he embodied in the second edition of his translation.”
The Clouds by Aristophanes: “As for Aristophanes, owing to his strong moral disapprobation, he could not bring himself to read him until he was forty, when, it is true, he was much struck by the 'Clouds'.”
The Christian Year by John Keble: “The superabundance of his piety overflowed into verse; and the holy simplicity of the Christian Year carried his name into the remotest lodging-houses of England.”
Journals of Major-Gen. C.G. Gordon at Kartoum by Charles George Gordon: “There are passages in the Khartoum Journals which call up in a flash the light, gliding figure, and the blue eyes with the candour of childhood still shining in them”
Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens: “the plummy-voiced reactionary Barker called me to his headmaster's library and handed me (1) a copy of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians and (2) a copy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's Communist Manifesto.”
Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry: “its author went on to write Eminent Victorians”