Page:Eminent Victorians.djvu/344

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SOME OPINIONS ON "EMINENT VICTORIANS"

"Mr. Lytton Strachey's 'Eminent Victorians' has had, I suppose, the most instant success that any book of account has won in this generation. Some of Mr. Strachey's incidental portraits are of astonishing brilliancy—notably that of Mr. Gladstone, and the book is sure of long life. This it will owe to its felicity of style and its finish and delicacy of moulding, no less than to its cynical wit and its perfectly serious and critical intention."

The Nation.

"A brilliant and extraordinarily witty book. Mr. Strachey's method of presenting his characters is both masterly and subtle. His purpose is to penetrate into the most hidden depths of his sitters' characters. There is something almost uncanny in the author's detachment."

The Times.

"An unusually interesting volume in a department of literature which, in England, has fallen to a grievously low level."

Manchester Guardian.

"Four short biographies which are certainly equal to anything of the kind which has been produced for a hundred years. He elucidates with consummate dexterity—the book is a masterpiece of its kind."

Mr. J. C. Squire, in Land and Water.

"A brilliant book has recently appeared which illustrates in very vigorous and striking fashion the interval which seems to divide the twentieth century from the nineteenth. Mr. Lytton Strachey's book has attained a celebrity quite remarkable for literary work produced in times of war. There is no doubt as to its literary merits."

Leading Article in The Daily Telegraph.

"Mr. Strachey's subtle and suggestive art."

Mr. Asquith's Romanes Lecture at Oxford.


LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS.