Description

Thomas Nelson And Sons Ltd. [Published Date: 1963]. Hardcover, 308 pp. First edition. Very good in very good dust jacket. Black cloth covered boards with gold lettering on spine. Light bumping and scuffing to edges of covers. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Dust jacket has a few small nicks and tears and light creasing along edges. Light overall scuffing and soiling to jacket as well. Clip on bottom corner of front flap. Now in an archival-quality (removable) Brodart Cover. [From front jacket flap] This beautifully articulated study turns upon two distinct but related topics : the relation of Gladstone to the public agitation aroused by the Bulgarian Atrocities of 1876, and the influence of the episode on his subsequent career and hence upon the whole development of British politics for the rest of the century. Original research and mature assessment of the evidence have led Dr Shannon to conclusions suggesting modification of the views generally held on these two points. His interpretation may give rise to discussion; but his stringent reasoning and imaginative perception make it a contribution to the subject which will bring conviction to most readers and require to be taken seriously by all. This is an expert's book in as much as it is a piece of specialist scholarship in a relatively restricted field; but the human and historical vision which sets the episode firmly within the framework of the wider issues from which it arose and which it illuminates, and the literary skill with which it is presented, make it also absorbing as well as enlightening reading for any one with an educated interest in the Victorian age. Dr Shannon is Lecturer in English History in the University of East Anglia.