Reading Gladstone

"William Ewart Gladstone is a figure of central importance in British history who has normally and understandably been treated as a statesman, the role in which he achieved international fame. Reading Gladstone, however, investigates areas of his life which have rarely, if ever, been examined in the past: his role as village librarian, his synchronized collection of books and women, and the remarkable transformations that occurred in his (self- ) representation as a scholar-politician. By exploring the ways in which Gladstone's reading and book-collecting possessed significance in Victorian culture, Ruth Clayton Windscheffel's book makes a major contribution to fresh intellectual and cultural perspectives on the statesman."--Jacket.