From high gothic architecture to the birth of the football league, from the novels of Dickens to the technological marvels of Brunel, the paintings of the era provide an overview that ranges across the whole of Victorian life and culture Jeremy Paxman's unique portrait of the Victorian world takes readers on an exciting journey through the birth of modern Britain. Using the paintings of the era as a starting point, he tells stories of urban life, family, faith, industry, and empire that helped define the Victorian spirit and imagination. To Paxman, these paintings were the television of their day, and his exploration of Victorian art and society explains how artists like Butler, William Powell Frith, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Luke Fildes, and Ford Madox Brown were chronicling a world changing before their eyes. This enthralling history is an opinionated, informed, surprising, and hugely enthusiastic appraisal of the Victorians' influence on modern culture.