Dr Piers Brendon is a courageous and independent man, and this book is notable not only for its own merits, which are considerable, but as a sign of liberation for future biographical writers. The message is this. Biographies have been getting longer, and can, without loss, with positive gain, become shorter- The book leaves one with two hopes. One, that Brendon will write more like it, two, that other biographers will start examining his model.'

Supremely readable and entertaining.

Piers Brendon's brilliant pen portraits of four famous figures of the Edwardian age- Here in sharp focus is all you ever wanted to know about them. Hilarious and sometimes not a little alarming.'

Well-researched, well-written and fascinating...a fine work

Norman Rose sorts out the Cliveden Set for us once and for all...calm, lucid and authoritative

The Cliveden Set was long said to be a conspiracy at the heart of the Establishment to appease Hitler. Here, at last is a full exposure of the truth behind the myth. Norman Rose has done a signal service to history, producing a work of profound scholarship written with a wonderfully light touch

Reading A. N. Wilson's The Victorians provides ongoing pleasure in handsomely researched, beautifully written prose about an age which we have come to think disparagingly. We thought wrong

The Victorians was one of the books that gave me greatest pleasure during the past year... A brilliant evocation of an age

Rarely have author and subject been found in such deep and contented harmony... Wilson's tour de force

Wilson's panoramic survey is the best attempt so far to describe and explain what was happening in that fascinating time

The Victorians finds Wilson writing at the height of his powers

I can't recall a history book furnishing so many laughs en route ... The Victorians is a work of scholarship, a labour of love, a persusasive polemic