A Victorian Wanderer: The Life of Thomas Arnold the Younger, and: Victorian Travellers in Cyprus: A Garden of Their Own, and : A Victorian Traveler in the Middle East: The Photography and Travel Writing of Annie Lady Brassey (review)

Bernard Bergonzi's A Victorian Wanderer recounts the life of Matthew Arnold's younger, handsomer, less gifted, Catholic brother. Bergonzi argues that while Thomas Arnold "lacked the intellectual distinction and sense of the way the world was going which gave his brother a special place in the life of the time," nonetheless, his life was "worth writing" because "he was a fascinating personality in his own right" (2). A lot hangs on that claim because what Bergonzi offers his readers is a biography of a person whose historic significance seems to rest primarily on whom he was related to. Tom was the son of a great British educator and the brother of an even greater English poet. He was the father of the novelist Mrs. Humphrey Ward and the grandfather, through his daughter Julia, of Aldous and Julian Huxley. He was the protégé of John Henry Newman and a close friend of Arthur Hugh Clough. Our interest in Tom Arnold the younger is inevitably entwined with our interest in his more famous family and friends.

A Victorian Wanderer is not an analysis of a traveler; rather, it is a traditional biography. After a brief introduction that argues for the interest of Tom Arnold's life, Bergonzi begins in quite the usual way, with a first chapter on "Family and Childhood." Then come eight chapters organized chronologically and in terms of the places where Tom lived. Chapter 2 is "Oxford and London," and we march through "New Zealand" (chapter 3) and other places, including "Van Diemen's Land" (chapter 4), "Oxford Again" (chapter 7), and "Dublin Again"(chapter 9). The narrative ends with chapter 10, "Golden Autumn." Bergonzi offers his readers a lucid account of Tom's activities, what people were in his life, and what his family was doing. We hear of his nine years away from Britain, beginning at age twenty-four, teaching in New Zealand, a marriage to Julia Sorell in Tasmania (Van Diemen's Land), their many children, and his conversion to Catholicism, which led to his return to Britain. Then come his long years as teacher and scholar, Julia's death, and his second marriage to Josephine Benison, also a Catholic convert. Through Newman's support, Tom was one of the first professors of literature at the Catholic University in Dublin and the Oratory School in Birmingham. A specialist in Anglo- Saxon literature, he translated and edited Beowulf. The book ends by describing Tom as an "immensely likeable man" who was "dogged by a sense of failure" but whose "encounters with people, places, and ideas made him a remarkable witness to his times" (246).

And that, of course, is the point. I do not think Bergonzi has made his case that Tom Arnold was "a fascinating personality in his own right" or that he was in any important way a "wanderer." Yet the biography is a highly informative read, both because it is so accessibly written and organized and because Tom Arnold's life intersected with so many Victorians whose activities do interest us. His life offers a convenient lens through which to look from a fresh angle at familiar issues and ideas. Bergonzi's book is a welcome addition to our knowledge of the lives and milieu of a class of Victorian men and women at a particularly rich moment in British cultural history.

Victorian Travellers in Cyprus is quite a different genre: a...