Lytton Strachey

Eminent Victorians is a groundbreaking work of biography that raised the genre to the level of high art. It replaced reverence with skepticism and Strachey's wit, iconoclasm, and narrative skill liberated the biographical enterprise. His portraits of Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and General Gordon changed perceptions of the Victorians for a generation. Lytton Strachey's biographical essays on four eminent Victorians dropped an explosive charge on Victorian England when the book was published in 1918. It ushered in the modern biography and raised the genre to the level of high literary art. Strachey approached his subjects with skepticism rather than reverence, and his iconoclastic wit and engaging narratives thrilled as well as shocked his contemporaries. Debunking Church, Public School and Empire, his portraits of Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold of Rugby, and General Gordon of Khartoum changed perceptions of the Victorians for a generation. This edition is unique in being fully annotated and in drawing on the full range of Strachey's manuscript materials and literary remains

Eminent Victorians

This is the definitive biography of Britain’s greatest monarch, who “was hailed at once as the mother of her people and as the embodied symbol of their imperial greatness.” “One of the surpassingly beautiful prose achievements of our time” (Chicago Daily News). Index; illustrations.

Queen Victoria

Dramatizes one of the most famous and most baffling romances in history -- between Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and Robert Devereux, the vital, handsome Earl of Essex. It began in May of 1587 when she was 53 and Essex was not yet 20 and continued until 1601.

A Tragic History

Elizabeth and Essex

Virginia Woolf

Ti basta l'Atlantico? Lettere 1906-1931

La regina Vittoria

Landmarks in French Literature

French & English

Books & Characters

in large print

Queen Victoria, born Alexandrina Victoria (1819 - 1901) ruled the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 until her death. At the age of 18 she inherited the throne, ruling for 63 years, longer than any other British monarch - the longest reign of any female monarch in history. She is remembered for her strict and stodgy moral standards, not to mention having an era named after her. Lytton Strachey (1880 - 1832) is remembered not only for his brilliant biography of Queen Victoria, but for changing the nature of biography all together. His new school approach incorporated psychological insight and a touching sympathy, coupled with a detached irreverence for his subject. Until this time, biographies - especially of dead monarchs - were dull, drawn-out eulogies with very little artistic flair.

A Self-portrait

Lytton Strachey by Himself

Lytton Strachey fue el crítico literario por excelencia del final de la época victoriana; Virginia Woolf ya había escrito cuatro de sus grandes novelas (El cuarto de Jacob, La señora Dalloway, Orlando y Al faro); y ambos brillaban con luz propia en el muy exigente Círculo de Bloomsbury. A lo largo de veinticinco años, mediante la correspondencia que reúne este volumen, juzgaron con agudeza sus propias obras y las ajenas, se elogiaron y trituraron, contaron anécdotas mordaces, se burlaron de las extravagancias que ellos no habían cometido y examinaron a sus ilustres amigos con miradas que oscilan entre el cariño y la crueldad. Jus publica por fin una versión íntegra en castellano que incluye varias cartas inéditas descubiertas en años recientes.

Correspondencia

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Queen Victoria, born Alexandrina Victoria (1819 - 1901) ruled the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 until her death. At the age of 18 she inherited the throne, ruling for 63 years, longer than any other British monarch - the longest reign of any female monarch in history. She is remembered for her strict and stodgy moral standards, not to mention having an era named after her. Lytton Strachey (1880 - 1832) is remembered not only for his brilliant biography of Queen Victoria, but for changing the nature of biography all together. His new school approach incorporated psychological insight and a touching sympathy, coupled with a detached irreverence for his subject. Until this time, biographies - especially of dead monarchs - were dull, drawn-out eulogies with very little artistic flair. The young Victoria, whose uncles had been scandalous louts, was reared under the tutelage of a strict governess, and she carried her propriety with her throughout her long reign. Shortly before becoming Queen she fell in love with her first Cousin, Prince Albert, an intelligent and sensitive man who was in love with the arts. They were married, and she was blissfully happy - Albert, however, was miserable. England, after decades of political intrigue, war, and excessive spending, had grown weary of its monarchy, but Victoria wasn't derailed. She carried on, relying on Albert more and more, as his behind-the-scenes political power began to grow. Queen Victoria remained happy until 1861, when her beloved husband died, a tragedy which cast her into a prolonged mourning. It wasn't until Disraeli became Prime Minister and began to dote on her that she was revived. She would be named "Empress of India" (despite never having gone there), would survive seven failed assassination attempts, preside over the height of British innovation and Empire, and help restore the beleaguered image of the monarchy. She would commemorate Albert, turning his room into a shrine, and love him until the end. A Queen, yes, but a woman, a mother, and wife as well. At its center, Strachey's brilliant and moving biography is not only the portrait of England's most eternal queen, but a tender love story as well.

A biography of the British queen covers her childhood, relations with other heads of state, devotion to Prince Albert, and the psychological influences on her character

Queen Victoria. (7th Printing.)

"Queen Victoria" by Lytton Strachey. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Reprint of the biography of Queen Victoria, originally published in 1921.

On November 6, 1817, died the Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent, and heir to the crown of England. Her short life had hardly been a happy one. By nature impulsive, capricious, and vehement, she had always longed for liberty; and she had never possessed it. She had been brought up among violent family quarrels, had been early separated from her disreputable and eccentric mother, and handed over to the care of her disreputable and selfish father. When she was seventeen, he decided to marry her off to the Prince of Orange; she, at first, acquiesced; but, suddenly falling in love with Prince Augustus of Prussia, she determined to break off the engagement. This was not her first love affair, for she had previously carried on a clandestine correspondence with a Captain Hess. Prince Augustus was already married, morganatically, but she did not know it, and he did not tell her. While she was spinning out the negotiations with the Prince of Orange, the allied sovereign-it was June, 1814-arrived in London to celebrate their victory. Among them, in the suite of the Emperor of Russia, was the young and handsome Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. He made several attempts to attract the notice of the Princess, but she, with her heart elsewhere, paid very little attention. Next month the Prince Regent, discovering that his daughter was having secret meetings with Prince Augustus, suddenly appeared upon the scene and, after dismissing her household, sentenced her to a strict seclusion in Windsor Park. "God Almighty grant me patience!" she exclaimed, falling on her knees in an agony of agitation: then she jumped up, ran down the backstairs and out into the street, hailed a passing cab, and drove to her mother's house in Bayswater. She was discovered, pursued, and at length, yielding to the persuasions of her uncles, the Dukes of York and Sussex, of Brougham, and of the Bishop of Salisbury, she returned to Carlton House at two o'clock in the morning. She was immured at Windsor, but no more was heard of the Prince of Orange. Prince Augustus, too, disappeared. The way was at last open to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.This Prince was clever enough to get round the Regent, to impress the Ministers, and to make friends with another of the Princess's uncles, the Duke of Kent. Through the Duke he was able to communicate privately with the Princess, who now declared that he was necessary to her happiness. When, after Waterloo, he was in Paris, the Duke's aide-de-camp carried letters backwards and forwards across the Channel. In January 1816 he was invited to England, and in May the marriage took place.The character of Prince Leopold contrasted strangely with that of his wife. The younger son of a German princeling, he was at this time twenty-six years of age; he had served with distinction in the war against Napoleon; he had shown considerable diplomatic skill at the Congress of Vienna; and he was now to try his hand at the task of taming a tumultuous Princess. Cold and formal in manner, collected in speech, careful in action, he soon dominated the wild, impetuous, generous creature by his side.

Biographical Essays

Ermyntrude and Esmeralda was written as an exchange of correspondence between two teenage girls who have pledged themselves to find out all they can about sex, love, and making babies. Their reported discoveries include a passionate love affair between Esmeralda's younger brother and his male tutor ("Will they have babies? If not, why not?"); Ermyntrude's affair with a handsome footman on a staircase; the attempted seduction of Ermyntrude by her governess. By using nursery terms for private parts of the anatomy (bow-wows and pussy cats will never sound the same), Strachey makes all the more ludicrous society's standard reaction of horror to sex and deviation. Wit, irony, exaggeration, melodrama, these were Lytton Strachey's methods in this recently discovered and never before published novella.

Lytton Strachey

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