He describes having been told in his youth by the socialite Lady Diana Cooper how, as a young girl, she sat at a dinner next to Earl Asquith, the British prime minister during World War I. He took her hand, she related, and placed it inside his trousers under the tablecloth. When she complained of this to her mother, she was told to be grateful she hadn't attracted British commander-in-chief, Lord Kitchener. His enthusiasm was apparently for sodomy, whether with a woman or another man didn't much matter.
This is a long book, but the Victorians need length. The mind reels under the images left from reading it -- railways increasing the speed man could move across land 20 times; five postal deliveries a day in central London, the post-boys resplendent in their red and gold uniforms; men strapped (standing) to the mouths of cannon and blasted to smithereens by grapeshot in reprisals for the Indian Mutiny; a peaceful solution to the problem of Ireland -- still unresolved -- within arm's reach until Charles Stewart Parnell (pronounced PARn'll, Wilson points out) was accused of adultery; Catholicism's re-emergence in English life, and so much more. The massive energy that displayed itself in almost all walks of life was phenomenal.
Some of Wilson's other heroes are Thomas Carlyle (whose complete works in 30 volumes the philosopher Anthony Quinton gave him when moving house and trimming his library), Prince Albert, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, W.E. Gladstone and Charles Kingsley, author of The Water Babies. But there are so many, and you can't help feeling that once he got down to studying a particular figure, Wilson soon found much to praise.
The book actually feels as if it was pasted together from sections, each of around three pages, and the resulting mass of papers shuffled into a huge and totally engrossing compilation. (Wilson attests to the fact that he completed the entire project in longhand). And how else could such a mammoth task be accomplished? A typical section will cover a character and his or her achievements, a topic or a major event. Each such section can be seen as about a day's work, and you can imagine Wilson setting off on foot from his home in London's Camden Town to the British Library, rubbing his hands together in anticipation and saying "Let's do Alfred Tennyson today!"
If you enjoy history, and are going away for Christmas and want to take one book to last you the whole trip, this could be an ideal choice.
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