Gladstone 1809-1874

H. C. G. Matthew

This biography makes available in one volume the dramatic and controversial story of William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898). Surveying his remarkable public and private life, it illuminates the keen ways in which he managed to become one of the most powerful political personalities in British history.

Gladstone 1809-1874

H. C. G. Matthew

A Clarendon Press Publication

Description

William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) has been hailed as the most characteristic and extraordinary of Victorians. His expansive public career--in and out of office from 1834 to 1894 and four times Prime Minister--was consistently controversial and dramatic. This work, by a highly acclaimed Gladstone scholar, makes available in a single volume the story of one of the most powerful political personalities in British history. The book describes Gladstone's education, his political career from the early years as a Tory to his spectacular first administration from 1868 to 1874 and the remarkable private drama of sexual temptation and moral crisis, which from the 1840s underlay Gladstone's public life. Illuminating the keen ways in which Gladstone managed to keep himself at the "top of the greasy pole" and become one of the most successful political figures in Britain, the work shows how Gladstone's career and views helped shape parliamentary politics of the Victorian age.

Gladstone 1809-1874

H. C. G. Matthew

A Clarendon Press Publication

Reviews and Awards

"It is a superb biography of Gladstone to the end of his first government, and it is deftly united by several leitmotives. For example, Gladstone's lifelong admixture of high church and evangelical Anglicanism, his transition from Tory to Peelite to Liberal politics, his preoccupation with church-state relations, the great issue of the parliamentary franchise, Gladstone's outstanding powers of administrative concentration and maneuver--these themes connect the chapters....There is, too, in this biography an important and subtle appreciation of Gladstone as politician....A sophisticated and important book. It will surely stand high in the vast Gladstone literature."--History: Reviews of New Books

"With the publication of this book, students and general readers will now have convenient access to Matthew's important essays that have contributed significantly not only to an understanding of the Diaries but to Gladstone and his age as well."--The Historian

"An important and useful overview of Gladstone's first sixty-three years."--Albion

"The biographical essay he offers is the best interpretative analysis available of Gladstone as a politician and as a person."--Journal of British Studies

"Matthew is among those very rare editors who can also write biography. Scholars and general readers should be delighted to have his work available at an affordable price."--Victorian Studies

"A rare combination of high scholarship and handiness"--Nineteenth-Century Prose

"An epoch making piece of research. Matthew's approach is thematic rather than strictly chronological, a distinct advantage in terms of both historiographical originality and the practical implications for the reader."--American Historical Review