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The Victorian Gentleman (English Gentleman Trilogy)
The Victorian Gentleman - English Gentleman Trilogy Author:Michael Brander Volume 2 The Making of THE VICTORIAN GENTLEMAN Michael Brander writes revealingly on the making, manners and morals of the Victorian Gentleman in the great age of British growth as an industrial power at home and a world power abroad as well as in affluence and pretension in social life. His birth, schooling and university education, his i... more »ntroduction to the world, his aims and aspirations are all depicted, often by quoting his own vivid descriptions, or those of eye witnesses. The age of our great-grandfathers was an age of often easy money and self-conscious manners, of immense social change when some made fortunes in stocks and shares and aspired to become gentlemen while others lost everything in city scandals when banks collapsed, yet still struggled to remain gentlemen. The advent of steam power saw railways proliferate, the Midlands industrialised, the Highlands Balmoralised and seaside resorts flourishing as sea air was recommended by the medical profession. It was a period of rigid class stratification, of outward respectability and outrageous behaviour behind closed doors, of great advances in science, medicine and travel, of high moral standards and astonishing hypocrisy. Military gentlemen, religious gentlemen, scandalous gentlemen, gentlemen involved in royal intrigue, in educational reform, in rebellion against the rigid morality of the era, gentlemen exploring the unknown parts of the world, shooting big game with muzzle-loading guns, hunting foxes and declaiming Greek verses, here is the complete panorama of gentlemen being born and shaped, at work and at play. This was the English Gentleman in full flower. Michael Brander is an M.A. Hist/Econ (hons) Cantab. He was born in Edinburgh and has written over fifty books on social and military history, biography, travel, horses, dogs and whisky (and contributed to a ?hilarious? cook-book by his wife, Evelyn), almost all published in the USA.. As one reviewer put it ?he writes entertainingly and very readably, with remarkably wide ranging research, and knows a good anecdote when he sees one.?« less