Arts
A lesson in History and Anthropology
Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey
“The Victorians Debunked” would be the title a modern editor would suggest for this irreverent and witty mix of four biographies. Here Lytton Strachey from the Bloomsbury Group, with snide, teenage-like charisma takes delight in puncturing three very austere, august Victorian heroes. And pairs the term ‘hypocritical’ with the Victorians. The three men are the historian Thomas Arnold, Henry Edward Cardinal Manning- prelate and General Gordon- army officer and administrator.
The fourth, Florence Nightingale, is more admired- but she too gets a thorough Freudian scrutiny to explain why she was such an ‘intense and driven’ woman who was ‘personally intolerable’.
All four people belonged to the rigid old guard. People were delighted rather than shocked when in 1918 the book came out with its ‘character assassinations’- a sign of how unpopular Victorian values had become. Bertrand Russell, British earl-philosopher, laughed so much reading it aloud in prison, he was reminded by a jailor that he was in a ‘place of punishment’.
Read this book for an amusing account which explains how the Victorian age acquired its snooty, rather grim reputation.
Meet the Victorians on
gutenberg.org
Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey
Here is an entertaining biography of the young girl who was dominated by her governess and mother; the queen at 18 with wide eyes and steady vision, the loving wife, not so loving mother at times, the black widow at Windsor, the symbol of the world’s biggest empire and the grandmother of Europe. With Strachey’s wit and imagination you never have a dull moment. It reads like a novel- and is much more exciting than any work of imagination because this was after all the life story of the small glittering figure who held together- and was adored by- one third of the world population at that time.
Read on gutenberg.org
A Short History of England by G. K. Chesterton
Just as colourful and vibrant as his Father Brown stories, this is a popular history where Chesterton explores England Past with his prism-like mind. An erudite and very thought provoking read.
Read on archive.org
The Forest People by Colin M. Turnbull
Anthropology text cum adventure story, the book takes you to the depths of the Congo where live the Mbuti pygmies. Turnbull lived with the people and the book conveys the love of the Mbuti for their rain forest home, and records their lives in every detail- from rituals to playtime- not as scientific subjects but as his bosom friends.
Enjoy on archive.org