This book was a rocking good read. It is very well written, and hilarious in parts. People have told me (either with glee or with a wag of the finger) that Strachey "takes the piss" out of Victorians in this book, but these people have never read the book. Waspish as his writing is, it is never (at

I read this book years ago and am considering rereading it again. I loved so many books about the Bloomsbury Group and Lytton Strachey was a very unusual but highly gifted individual.

In this classic book, Strachey deconstructs four heroes of Victorian England with acid wit and brutal directness. Cardinal Manning, a man of Catholic integrity, becomes a scheming power player; Florence Nightingale, a heroine driven by ruthless demons; Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby school, a moralist p

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 Monsig

One should rather read Lytton Strachey’s ‘Eminent Victorians’ if one is interested to gain an insight into how Strachey dismounts with relish Victorian heroes and values. My motivation to read this book has been generated from my interest in the Bloomsbury Group, which the eccentric Lytton Strachey