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The Victorians by A. N. Wilson
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The Victorians (original 2003; edition 2003)

by A. N. Wilson

Series: Britain Trilogy (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,1681216,836 (3.74)27
Andrew Norman Wilson wrote a book Eminent Victorians and so did Lytton Strachey, but in the early 1900s, thereby confirming Strachey as an Eminent Victorian himself. However Wilson’s prose makes for an eminently more readable work, and in this panoramic study of the Victorian period he describes practically every single Victorian and historical event of the period worthy of note. The hundred-odd pages of references and source notes attest to the depth and breadth of his research, and it is obvious in reading the work that the author has spent years studying this period of history and he shows that he clearly knows the Victorian period.

It is his almost seemingly personal knowledge of these Victorian figures of history, invention, literature and politics – impossible of course as Wilson was not born until 1950 – that brings the book alive with insights. He brings a very human dimension to events as differing as the Irish Famine and the Zulu War and adds characteristics to the personalities that determined not only the British Victorian experience, but those of the whole Victorian Empire. The author explains how religion or atheism formed and distorted public and political values and how the literature of Dickens, Marx, and Tolstoy and even the fiction of the time eventually moved the poor into the conscience of the politicians and rulers.

Wilson shows how the Victorians were immensely successful in generating wealth and in inventions that removed labour from manufacturing, thereby adding to the working class poor and how, by their trading across the world, they ensured emigration and famine. Marx was always confounded that the riots and starvation of 1840 to 1850 never led to a British revolution while Europe was so deeply engrossed in so many. Wilson’s explanations on both the character of the British Victorians, their recent history and the emergence of valued and respected political leaders and (perhaps tardy) solutions staved off the revolt that many foretold.

This, the book jacket blurb says, was the book that Wilson was born to write. I have however enjoyed others he has written and look forward to adding more to my reading. This is a writer that you can respect, for his invested work on researching his subjects, and for his honesty and wit. This book is enjoyable historical writing in great depth.
  John_Vaughan | Jul 26, 2011 |
Showing 12 of 12
Folio society edition very nice as usual. I learned what "cock-a-hoop" means. ( )
  markm2315 | Jul 1, 2023 |
Andrew Norman Wilson wrote a book Eminent Victorians and so did Lytton Strachey, but in the early 1900s, thereby confirming Strachey as an Eminent Victorian himself. However Wilson’s prose makes for an eminently more readable work, and in this panoramic study of the Victorian period he describes practically every single Victorian and historical event of the period worthy of note. The hundred-odd pages of references and source notes attest to the depth and breadth of his research, and it is obvious in reading the work that the author has spent years studying this period of history and he shows that he clearly knows the Victorian period.

It is his almost seemingly personal knowledge of these Victorian figures of history, invention, literature and politics – impossible of course as Wilson was not born until 1950 – that brings the book alive with insights. He brings a very human dimension to events as differing as the Irish Famine and the Zulu War and adds characteristics to the personalities that determined not only the British Victorian experience, but those of the whole Victorian Empire. The author explains how religion or atheism formed and distorted public and political values and how the literature of Dickens, Marx, and Tolstoy and even the fiction of the time eventually moved the poor into the conscience of the politicians and rulers.

Wilson shows how the Victorians were immensely successful in generating wealth and in inventions that removed labour from manufacturing, thereby adding to the working class poor and how, by their trading across the world, they ensured emigration and famine. Marx was always confounded that the riots and starvation of 1840 to 1850 never led to a British revolution while Europe was so deeply engrossed in so many. Wilson’s explanations on both the character of the British Victorians, their recent history and the emergence of valued and respected political leaders and (perhaps tardy) solutions staved off the revolt that many foretold.

This, the book jacket blurb says, was the book that Wilson was born to write. I have however enjoyed others he has written and look forward to adding more to my reading. This is a writer that you can respect, for his invested work on researching his subjects, and for his honesty and wit. This book is enjoyable historical writing in great depth.
  John_Vaughan | Jul 26, 2011 |
Although I am not usually a great history reader, this book is easily the best of the genre I have ever read. Not only is it superbly written but it covers a huge range of the aspects of the era. Every important happening and person seems to be included from the arts, politics, science etc., etc. Definitely a masterpiece of the genre. ( )
  Mouldywarp | Jun 19, 2009 |
A miracle or mesmerism, empiricism or an existentialist crisis, crushing capitalist Darwinism or moral benevolence; A. N. Wilson takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the period in which our concept of the modern world was founded.

Beginning in the early years of the period as Victoria takes her throne, we travel through the atrocities of the Irish potato famine and the Chartist uprisings, encounter politicians and policemen of varying temperament and morality, and ponder the opposing contemporary attitudes of survival of the fittest and moral kindness towards humanity. We strive to imagine a world undergoing such intense economic growth in the face of grinding poverty, a period in which to be capitalist very often meant being liberal.

Wilson’s tour de force encompasses the popular practice of mesmerism, the religion doubt generated by scientific advancement, the preoccupation with zoos and the interest generated by the Great Exhibition. Always present is the sense of middle class ambition, the desire to advance both socially and economically, to push the boundaries of technological advancement. Yet every progression, every great leap, is underpinned by the colonial expansion of the Empire and the economic benefits of slavery loom large like a cloud of guilt over the age. Scientific theories such as phrenology are submitted as proof to endorse the concept of racial superiority and thus securing belief in the fallacy of imperialism as a positive benefit for native societies.

An age of terrific achievement and advancement underpinned by civil unrest and the atrocities of colonialism and war, the Victorians strove constantly onwards marching towards an idealised version of the progressive society. Sentiments like these cannot always be in accordance with our own view of the world, but they must at times be admired. Wilson’s text perfectly captures this Victorian paradox. ( )
  mrsradcliffe | May 29, 2008 |
This book is well worth reading. The Victorian Era is not a period of history I was particularly attracted to, however, I read this author's "After The Victorians" and was so impressed that I wanted to read this volume as well. A.N. Wilson, has done, in my opinion, what is very close to impossible and that is to present a factually dense book which is also one of the most readable of any book I have read. There are many works of fiction that should be this enjoyable to read. It matters not if you are interested in this period or history in general, this book is a delight.
1 vote Northlaw | Apr 5, 2008 |
"The Victorians" has been widely acclaimed as the classic single-volume history of the Victorian era. Now, in this illustrated edition, A.N. Wilson presents his magnificent portrait of the age alongside many enthralling images of the 19th-century lives that he pieced together - telling a story that is still unfinished in our own day. This beautifully produced large-format hardback contains over 150 illustrations, including photographs, paintings, drawings and cartoons from the age.
  antimuzak | Mar 28, 2008 |
The complexity of this book impressed me. I expected something lighter, along the lines of Victorian-author trivia, but the book really delivers a multifaceted analysis of the Victorian Zeitgeist as well as important politicians, events, thinkers and writers of the time. ( )
  fancyconstance | Jun 4, 2007 |
A really readable account of the Victoria era. Scholarly and informative but still a darn good read.
Not entirely sure I agree with all the conclusions though. He certainly seems to have a streak of the Daily Mail 'hurrah for the ordinary money grubbing masses and boo for the liberal, educated Whigs' kind of thing going on. And he seemms unnecessarily harsh on Darwin. Other than that though, a big thumbs up. ( )
  Abi78 | Jan 13, 2007 |
To many of us, "Victorian" connotes boring, prudish, or tradition-bound, but to A. N. Wilson, the word evokes a richness of contrarieties. In The Victorians, this award-winning historian offers a rich narrative of an era that reconstructed itself into the modern age. Moving from the panoramic to the personal, he introduces readers to the deeply felt contradictions of 19th-century British culture and examines how political issues and technological developments caused fissures that rocked the staid empire.

A dramatic, revisionist panorama of an age whose material triumphs and spiritual crises prefigure our own.The nineteenth century saw greater changes than any previous era: in the ways nations and societies were organised, in scientific knowledge, and in nonreligious intellectual development. The crucial players in this drama were the British, who invented both capitalism and imperialism and were incomparably the richest, most important investors in the developing world. In this sense, England's position has strong resemblances to America's in the late twentieth century. As one of our most accomplished biographers and novelists, A. N. Wilson has a keen eye for a good story, and in this work he singles out those writers, statesmen, scientists, philosophers, and soldiers whose lives illuminate so revolutionary a history: Darwin, Marx, Gladstone, Christina Rossetti, Gordon, Cardinal Newman, George Eliot, Kipling, Dostoevsky. Wilson's accomplishment in this book is to explain through these signature lives how Victorian England started a revolution that still hasn't ended.

A. N. Wilson is the author of the biographies of Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, Jesus, and Paul, the history God's Funeral, and several celebrated novels. He lives in London.

The New Yorker: Better known for his prodigious output as a biographer -- his subjects have included Tolstoy, Jesus, and C. S. Lewis -- A. N. Wilson has returned to social history. The Victorians, Wilson's chronicle of nineteenth-century Britain, looks at everything from the era's religious crises (the decline of Christian conviction) to its scientific advances (the emergence of evolutionary theory). One of the major themes is the growing problem of social stratification; the wealthy retreated into gated squares and the poor were left to live in what Wilson memorably describes as "a hard, brick-built, low-lying, gin-soaked world out of whose gaslit music halls and fogbound alleys mythologies developed."
  antimuzak | Sep 7, 2006 |
Miro's review is on this page:

http://www1.dragonet.es/users/markbcki/wilsonan.htm ( )
  Miro | Oct 15, 2005 |
Comes highly recommended...I'm told not to be intimidated by its length, as it moves quickly, and it ties Victorian novels in a lot, which I love.
  AlCracka | Apr 2, 2013 |
AN Wilson’s The Victorians is the longest and liveliest of the books which have appeared in the wake of the centenary of Victoria’s death. As one might expect, Wilson, Evening Standard columnist, novelist, and polemical biographer, has an eye for colourful detail, cannot resist gossip about the great and good, and smells out cant and hypocrisy at 10 paces. Familiar tales are told about the sexual proclivities, religious hypocrisies and gargantuan economic and imperial appetites of the Victorians. But the book is more than an exercise in debunking. Wilson sees 19th century Britons as the harbingers of modernity: the first society to grapple with and agonise over the Darwinian struggle of social mobility and industrial growth. He documents in detail the relentless drive for getting on, sympathises with its victims--in the English towns, the Irish bogs and on the Indian plains – and warms to the critical commentary of the chief sages and seers of the era: Carlyle, Dickens, and Manning. The intellectual set-pieces of the time--the Gothic revival, religion versus science, Anglo-Catholicism--are particularly well-handled.

As well as being its strengths, the author’s prejudices are at times the book’s weaknesses. Apart from Victoria’s Prime Ministers and the Irish nationalist leader, Parnell, Wilson doesn’t much like the politicians of the period (or the political economists), and these aspects of Victorian history get rather short shrift. And the narrative occasionally jumps and jars as he tries to include everything and anything (Dostoyevsky and Wagner wander in at one stage). But there is much to amuse and instruct throughout, and, just as important, not a little to argue with as well.--Miles Taylor ( )
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1 vote | Alinea | May 16, 2011 |
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