Author | Jacob Rees-Mogg |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | Victorian era |
Genre | Biography |
Publisher | W. H. Allen & Co. |
Publication date | 23 May 2019 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Pages | 464 |
ISBN | 978-0753548523 |
941.081 |
The Victorians: Twelve Titans who Forged Britain is a 2019 biographical work by the Conservative politician Jacob Rees-Mogg, a backbencher at the time, in which he discusses twelve influential British figures of the Victorian period.
The book covers Prince Albert, Disraeli, Palmerston, Robert Peel, William Gladstone, Sir Charles James Napier, General Gordon, W. G. Grace, William Sleeman, Albert Dicey, Augustus Pugin, and Queen Victoria.
The book was subject to a largely negative critical reception. [1] [2] Columnist A. N. Wilson called it "staggeringly silly" and "morally repellent", [3] while historian Richard J. Evans described it as "plodding, laborious, humourless and barely readable". [4]
It has been criticised for including only one woman, for failure to use primary sources, and on literary grounds. In her review, scholar of the Victorian period Kathryn Hughes wrote, "At least we know The Victorians isn't ghost written, since no self-respecting freelancer would dare ask for payment for such rotten prose". [2]
Dominic Sandbrook, reviewing the book for The Sunday Times , described it as "bad, boring and mind‑bogglingly banal". [5] [6]
However, the historian Andrew Roberts described the book as "a full-throated, clear-sighted, well-researched and extremely well-written exposition of the Victorians and their values". [7]
Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–1872) and Daniel Deronda (1876). As with Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside. Middlemarch was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people" and by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.
William Rees-Mogg, Baron Rees-Mogg was a British newspaper journalist who was Editor of The Times from 1967 to 1981. In the late 1970s, he served as High Sheriff of Somerset, and in the 1980s was Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain and Vice-Chairman of the BBC's Board of Governors. He was the father of the politicians Sir Jacob and Annunziata Rees-Mogg.
Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist known for his critical biographies, novels and works of popular history. He is an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail and a former columnist for the London Evening Standard. He has been an occasional contributor to The Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, The Spectator and The Observer.
Dominic Christopher Sandbrook, is a British historian, author, columnist and television presenter. He co-hosts The Rest is History podcast with the author Tom Holland.
The Devil's Tune is a novel by British politician Iain Duncan Smith, published on 6 November 2003, the same day he left office as leader of the Conservative Party after losing a no confidence vote.
Steve Roud is the creator of the Roud Folk Song Index and an expert on folklore and superstition. He was formerly Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society.
Sir Jacob William Rees-Mogg is a British politician and member of the Conservative Party who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Somerset from 2010 to 2024. He served as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council from 2019 to 2022, Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency from February to September 2022 and Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from September to October 2022. Rees-Mogg previously chaired the eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG) from 2018 to 2019 and has been associated with socially conservative views.
Annunziata Mary Rees-Mogg is a British freelance journalist whose focus is finance, economics, and European politics. She was a Brexit Party, then Conservative politician, during 2019 and into early 2020. Rees-Mogg has been a leader writer for The Daily Telegraph, deputy editor of MoneyWeek, and editor of the European Journal, a Eurosceptic magazine owned by Bill Cash's think tank, the European Foundation.
Kathryn Hughes is a British academic, journalist and biographer. Educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University and the University of East Anglia (UEA); her doctorate in Victorian history was developed into her first book, The Victorian Governess. She is the Director of Creative Non-Fiction at the University of East Anglia,
Amanda Jane Vickery is an English historian, writer, radio and television presenter, and professor of early modern history at Queen Mary, University of London.
Moggmentum is an online right-wing campaign and grassroots movement supporting Jacob Rees-Mogg, in a similar fashion to the 2015 phenomena of Milifandom and Momentum. The movement includes pressure for Rees-Mogg to become the Leader of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. Comparisons between Moggmentum and the Tea Party movement in the United States have been made with regard to their supporting "rightwing ideas, grassroots activism and shaking up the conservative establishment".
The European Research Group (ERG) is a research support group and caucus of Eurosceptic Conservative Members of Parliament of the United Kingdom. The journalist Sebastian Payne described it in the Financial Times as "the most influential [research group] in recent political history".
The Victorians may refer to:
The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History is a book by Boris Johnson, in which he details the life of former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. It was originally published on 23 October 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton.
Eleanor Catherine Parker is a British historian and medievalist.
Timothy Pleydell-Bouverie is a British historian and former political journalist at Channel 4 News.
Warhol is a 2020 biography of American artist Andy Warhol written by art critic Blake Gopnik. It was published by Allen Lane in the UK and Ecco in the US. At 976 pages in length, it has been marketed as the definitive biography of Warhol. Waldemar Januszczak of The Sunday Times wrote that "it is impossible to imagine anyone finding out much more about Andy than is recorded here. In that sense it's definitive."
East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity is a 2016 book by Philippe Sands that examines the lives of two Jewish lawyers, Hersch Lauterpacht and Raphael Lemkin, born within three years of each other and students in the same city on the eastern outskirts of Europe, Lviv, who created the legal concepts of crimes against humanity and genocide. It is a memoir and history of the origins of international criminal law in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Anne Rees-Mogg was an experimental film director and teacher. She served as the chair of the London Film-makers' Co-operative between 1981 and 1984. She was the younger sister of the newspaper editor William Rees-Mogg and the aunt of the British politician Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Dominic Robert Andrew Johnson, Baron Johnson of Lainston,, is a British financier, hedge fund manager and politician, the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Somerset Capital Management. He currently serves as a Minister of State in the Department for Business and Trade, having served in the department during the tenure of Liz Truss. Johnson has given more than £250,000 to the Conservative Party, and was its vice-chairman from 2016 to 2019.