The History of the Victorian age The Victorian era produced many eminent figures. Lytton Strachey was one of them. Born in 1880, Strachey was a British biographer and a critic who is credited of having revolutionized the art of writing biography. He opened a new era of biographical writing by adopting an irreverent attitude to the past, especially to the volumes of the Victorian biography. His book, Eminent Victorians, a wartime book composed of four miniature …showed first 75 words of 607 total…

…showed last 75 words of 607 total…biographies are short anecdotal, witty and entertaining. His aim, as he has declared in the preface, was to cast " a sudden revealing searchlight into obscure recesses hitherto undivined". In the process he occasionally sacrificed truth, but the result - polished, malicious, and lively - made him the hero of the Victorian era. Even today, when people use "Victorian" as a synonym for "smug," "prudish" or "flowery," they are showing the impact of Strachey's satiric perspective.