"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
None of Strachey's Victorians emerge unscathed. In his hands, Florence Nightingale is not a gentle archangel descended from heaven to minister sweetly to wounded soldiers, but rather an exacting, dictatorial, and judgmental crusader. Her "pen, in the virulence of its volubility, would rush ... to the denunciation of an incompetent surgeon or the ridicule of a self-sufficient nurse. Her sarcasm searched the ranks of the officials with the deadly and unsparing precision of a machine-gun. Her nicknames were terrible. She respected no one." Dr. Thomas Arnold, the man appointed to revamp the very private British public school system, fares little better: in Strachey's acid ink, he became "the founder of the worship of athletics and the worship of good form." In this same vain, military hero General Gordon is portrayed as a temperamental, irascible hermit, occasionally drunk and often found in the company of young boys--a man who tended to forget and forgo the tenets found in the Bible he kept with him always. And the powerful and popular Cardinal Manning, who came within a hair's breadth of succeeding Pope Pius IX, belonged, Strachey writes, "to that class of eminent ecclesiastics ... who have been distinguished less for saintliness and learning than for practical ability."
As he offered up indelible sketches of his less-than-fab four, Strachey was intent on critiquing established mores. This effortlessly superior wit knew full well that deep convictions and good deeds often go hand in hand with hypocrisy, arrogance, and egomania. His task was to pique those who pretended they did not. --Jordana Moskowitz
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 2.64
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 160459747X-2-1
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes). Seller Inventory # 001090504N
Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. Eminent Victorians 0.71. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9781604597479
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9781604597479
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # ABLIING23Mar2811580112799
Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. THIS BOOK IS PRINTED ON DEMAND. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # L0-9781604597479
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Special order direct from the distributor. Seller Inventory # ING9781604597479
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_160459747X
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard160459747X