YOUNG (G. M. editor) English Historical Documents, volume XII (1), 1833-1874, general editor, David C. Douglas, , London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1964.

Reprint. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. Heavy book standard postage charge, no extra will be asked for. Dust jacket complete except price clipped. Original cloth with bright gil titling on spine. No ownership inscription. xxiii, 1017 pages clean and tight. Edited by G. M. YOUNG, M.A., D.Litt., Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and W. D. HANDCOCK, Nt.A., B.Litt., Senior Lecturer in History, University of Exeter. Eiiglisli Historical Documents is a work designed to make generally accessible a wide selection of the fundamental sources of English history, and the present is one of two volumes which will be devoted to the Victorian age. In one respect the student of Victorian history finds himself today in a favourable position. Personal memories and family traditions regarding an epoch relatively so close to us, impart to many of the Victorian topics an actuality which is sometimes lacking in respect of more remote periods. On the other hand, these topics have now become sufficiently distant in time for them to be grasped by the student of history in their totality. The Victorian period witnessed a profound transformation of English society. It saw the decisive shift from agriculture to industry and trade as the bases of the national livelihood, the growth of a predominantly urban society of a sort, and on a scale, new in the experience of mankind, while in the political sphere it saw the engrafting first of middle-class and then of large popular elements on to a predominantly aristocratic constitution that had just recently, in the Napoleonic Wars, given the world a singular demonstration of its stability and strength. Thus the central theme of Victorian history might be described as that of the response of the institutions and traditions of an old, vigorous and highly integrated society to the twin impacts of industrialism and democracy. To illustrate this theme by contemporary evidence, between the years of 1833 and 1874, to provide original testimony of its complexity and growth, is the object of this volume. So important was this development, and so enduring were its consequences, that it has been thought fit to consecrate an entire volume to its documentation. The history of the Empire and of foreign policy (both of which have been treated elsewhere in authoritative documentary collections) is not therefore here represented, and the direct documentation of Irish affairs has been postponed to a subsequent volume in the series. The scope of the present volume, the unity of the period with which it deals, the wide ramifications of the central theme which it seeks to display are explained by the Editors in their general introduction. They have drawn their material from a very wide variety of sources, some of which are little known, and it is believed that their work provides essential contemporary evidence of an historical process whose consequences are still to be felt not only in England but in many other countries in the world. (Book ref. 128385)  £20.00

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