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Charley Gordon: An Eminent Victorian Reassessed
The personality and career of General Gordon were extraordinary even among those of Victorian heroes of Empire. He went from Sebastopol and the Redan to action against Chinese rebels and East African slavers; from governorships and commands all over Africa to the Sudan and finally to that unnecessary death by the Nile. As the Dictionary of National Biography characteristically states, 'His memory is perpetuated by statues in London, Chatham and Khartoum and by the Gordon Boys' Homes.'
What drove him? Imperialism, religion, ambition, do-goodery? The image persists of Lytton Strachey's toping, neurotically Christian defender of Khartoum. The truth is partly there - but in fact the reality was more interesting, more full of achievement and more odd. Charles Chenevix Trench presents us with a full portrait of this eccentric servant of Empire - a volatile, chain-smoking fundamentalist, impossible to his colleagues and anathema to his superiors. His major biography is based on an extensive study of contemporary sources and Gordon's own papers, many of them hitherto unused.
What drove him? Imperialism, religion, ambition, do-goodery? The image persists of Lytton Strachey's toping, neurotically Christian defender of Khartoum. The truth is partly there - but in fact the reality was more interesting, more full of achievement and more odd. Charles Chenevix Trench presents us with a full portrait of this eccentric servant of Empire - a volatile, chain-smoking fundamentalist, impossible to his colleagues and anathema to his superiors. His major biography is based on an extensive study of contemporary sources and Gordon's own papers, many of them hitherto unused.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published May 25, 1978
About the author
Charles Chenevix Trench
32 books2 followersMajor Charles Pocklington Chenevix Trench was the great grandson of Richard Chenevix Trench.
Charles Chenevix Trench became the author of a wide variety of popular historical works after serving as an Indian Army officer in the 1930s, winning an MC during the Second World War and then becoming a district commissioner in Kenya. He wrote 19 books, including three classic accounts of British India. His interest in the 18th century led to his biography of the demagogue John Wilkes, and The Royal Malady, a study of George III's madness which drew on the unpublished papers of the King's physician, Sir George Baker, and the diary of Dr John Willis. He also produced The Western Risings, an account of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, and Grace's Card, Irish Catholic Landlords 1690-1800.
Charles Chenevix Trench became the author of a wide variety of popular historical works after serving as an Indian Army officer in the 1930s, winning an MC during the Second World War and then becoming a district commissioner in Kenya. He wrote 19 books, including three classic accounts of British India. His interest in the 18th century led to his biography of the demagogue John Wilkes, and The Royal Malady, a study of George III's madness which drew on the unpublished papers of the King's physician, Sir George Baker, and the diary of Dr John Willis. He also produced The Western Risings, an account of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, and Grace's Card, Irish Catholic Landlords 1690-1800.
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