The man who slumped in a chair

Lytton Strachey Eminent Victorians

In many of the photographs taken of him at Ottoline Morrell's home, Lytton Stachey is often seen slumped in a chair. Ottoline assumed he was 'thinking great thoughts', perhaps about this book.

This biography of four notable Victorians: Florence Nightingale, General Gordon, Thomas Arnold and Cardinal Manning is one of Lytton’s best known works.

His witty approach to his subjects blew away the reverence in which each had previously been held. Published in 1918 it radically changed the tenor of subsequent biographies which had until then been studies in veneration. 

Bertrand Russell read the book whilst in Brixton Prison. ‘I often laughed out loud in my cell while I was reading the book. The warder came to my cell to remind me that prison was a place of punishment.’

The success of Eminent Victorians was followed in 1921 by the publication of a biography of Queen Victoria for which he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.