Victorian Wanderer C

Bernard Bergonzi has written an absorbing and fascinating biography of Thomas Arnold the Younger (1824-1900), son of the celebrated headmaster of Rugby and younger brother of Matthew, father of Mrs. Humphrey Ward, and grandfather of Aldous Huxley. A scholar, teacher, and self-styled "wanderer," Arnold's path in life took him, after a brilliant start at Oxford, to colonial New Zealand, to Tasmania, to Dublin, back to Oxford, and once more to Dublin, where he died in 1900. This biography explores Arnold's diverse path through academia, his complex relationship with Catholicism, and his acquaintances with such luminaries as Wordsworth, Arthur Hugh Clough, Lewis Carroll, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and James Joyce.