Best Selling Books by Lytton Strachey

Eminent Victorians is a book by Lytton Strachey, consisting of biographies of four leading figures from the Victorian era. Its fame rests on the irreverence and wit Strachey brought to bear on three men and a woman who had until then been regarded as heroes: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and General Gordon (although Nightingale is actually praised and her reputation was enhanced). The book shows its other subjects in a less than flattering light; for instance, the intrigues of Cardinal Manning against Cardinal Newman.

Elizabeth I of England had one great passion in her life and that was for the Earl of Essex giving him power, wealth and favour in such a way that he made many enemies. This fascinating biography of this great romance is written in such a way as to appear as a historical novel. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

This new selection of Strachey''s letters is a whole new chapter in the history of the last century. Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) is one of the key figures in the cultural life of 20th century Britain and his letters are a literary treasure-trove of the man and his world, as well as a record of the startling and poignant love-affair between him and the painter Dora Carrington. The breadth of his correspondence is breathtaking, going from precocious childhood letters to letters to Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Maynard Keynes and other members of the Bloomsbury Group to love letters to Duncan Grant and Carrington. The thousands of letters he wrote retain their vitality to this day discussing changes in morals, the writing of history, literature and philosophy, politics, war and peace and the advent of modernism.