James Anthony Froude: An Intellectual Biography of a Victorian Prophet
Brady writes about even the most difficult material with consistent clarity and energy, and with a cool but generous relish for all aspects of Froude's enormous output. Froude's often outre, sometimes absurb and occasionally repellent political opinions and activities are expounded with insight and sympathy, and the portrait of the complex, gifted and exasperating individual that emerges is entirely pursuasive. Eamon Duffy, Times Literary Supplement a rich slice of intellectual history as well as a memorable portrait of an impressive, if intermittently appalling, personality who left an enduring mark on Irish historiography, Carlylean biography and much else. Roy Foster, The Times Literary Supplement Brady has mastered not only Froude's own prodigious body of writing but also a vast, demanding literature on Victorian intellectual history. The result is an erudite and absorbing study, a masterclass of scholarly exegesis and lucid analysis. Brady's study may not make Froude any more appealing, nor his many offensive views and prejudices any more palatable, than they have hitherto been considered. But the work triumphantly renders Froude, the public historian and sage, more intelligible and infinitely more interesting than we may have assumed and, in the process, illumines large swathes of the intellectual landscape of Victorian England. The Irish Times [Froude's] unpublished autobiography should have been called Disappointment. There is nothing disappointing, however, in this elegant biography. History Today With consummate skill and erudition Brady traces the intricate course of Froude's thinking through his work... Literary Review [Froude's] fate is a puzzle, and Brady's exhaustive investigation is the first to give it the attention it deserves. John Pemble, London Review of Books Absorbing John-Paul McCarthy, Sunday Independent (Ireland) Mr. Brady ... has written a shrewd, vigilant inquiry into biography and literary ethics The Wall Street Journal this book could not be more timely, or more useful in elucidating the roots of a prophetic vocation Julia Stapleton, American Historical Review