The Victorians

'Rarely have author and subject been found in such deep and contented harmony- Wilson's tour de force' Robert McCrum, 'Books of the Year', ObserverPeople, not abstract ideas, make history, and nowhere is this more revealed than in A. N. Wilson's superb portrait of the Victorians, in which hundreds of different lives have been pieced together to tell a story - one which is still unfinished in our own day. The 'global village' is a Victorian village and many of the ideas we take for granted, for good or ill, originated with these extraordinary, self-confident people. What really animated their spirit, and how did they remake the world in their view? In an entertaining and often dramatic narrative, A. N. Wilson shows us remarkable people in the very act of creating the Victorian age.

Short-listed for WH Smith Book Awards (General Knowledge) 2003 Short-listed for PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2003

“A wonderful book”

The best single-volume work on the Victorian age yet written -- Andrew Roberts Evening Standard
Huge, entertaining volume of popular history Sunday Times
Sunday Telegraph
A masterpiece of popular history -- Frank McLynn Independent
Wilson is incapable of writing a dull sentence... This is the history of a vanished world brought to vibrant life -- Beryl Bainbridge Observer
The Victorians widens the focus of God's Funeral which was one of the best books of its year. This one, too, is to be devoured -- Tom Stoppard Sunday Telegraph
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 -- Clement Freud Mail on Sunday
The Victorians was one of the books that gave me greatest pleasure during the past year... A brilliant evocation of an age -- Ian McIntyre The Times
Rarely have author and subject been found in such deep and contented harmony... Wilson's tour de force -- Robert McCrum Observer
Wilson's panoramic survey is the best attempt so far to describe and explain what was happening in that fascinating time Literary Review

A. N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he has held a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

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