Published in 1918, Eminent Victorians is a collection of four biographies of prominent heroes at the time of the author, Lytton Strachey. The biographies include those of Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and General Gordon, and the reputations of all but Florence Nightingale declined from their former status. The idea of the book was that all of the 'characters' or people that the biographies were about, are drastically different, but their lives can be connected in unique ways. At the time, the three men were considered heroes, but the book controversially represented them as not as important as that.
Lytton Strachey was born on March 1, 1880, and Eminent Victorians was his most famous work. The book gained so much popularity because of the way it was written - not only the events in someone's life, but also the psychological aspects. His whole career was basically writing, as he left home in 1905 and starting jotting things down even earlier. Eminent Victorians was his first book and got his name popularized.
