High Minds

Heffer has written a stunning overview of the great and the good – and the not-so-good – of Victorian society and of the changes which a largely benevolent capitalism brought about.

Sarah Bradford, The Literary Review

High Minds is worthy to the task: serious, scholarly, grand and determined...an excellent guide to the aesthetics of the age.

Tristram Hunt, New Statesman

[I]t is really a whole bookshelf of books. If you want a succinct volume on the Clarendon Commission and the debates on education, there is a not-so-slim volume embedded here. There is another on the desperate case of the formidable Caroline Norton and the battle to give women rights...another on the great philanthropists; another on crime and punishment; another (wonderfully detailed and compelling) on the Great Exhibition and the foundation of Albertopolis; another on the sewers; a terrific essay on the struggle between Gothic and Italianate architecture; and of course plenty of politics...This is a great sweeping, confident book, demonstrating the self-same energy and passion as do the Victorian heroes Heffer celebrates. It is a magnificent achievement.

William Waldegrave, The Times

[A] stimulating and thoroughly enjoyable book...[Heffer] is sometimes tendentious but never unreasonable, writes notably well and provides an admirable introduction to a period of history which many of us will think that we know quite well but have never considered from this point of view before.

Philip Ziegler, The Spectator

High Minds is partly social history, partly a history of ideas. It is the personalities involved that contribute such liveliness to this assured and magisterial narrative.

Matthew Dennison, The Sunday Telegraph

There is something enormously refreshing about reading a history book with such a passionate moral agenda, as well as one with such scope, energy and intellectual clarity. High Minds is a book Heffer’s heroes would have loved – and perhaps there is no higher compliment than that.

Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times

[A]bsolutely riveting . . . As dramatic as he is bold, as droll as he insightful, Heffer keeps his foot firmly on the throttle throughout, ensuring the narrative never flags.

John Preston, Daily Mail

Magnificent... [A] gloriously detailed narrative.

S J D Green, Standpoint

A rich, readable and unashamedly moralistic anti-Strachey.

Sunday Times

This important book provides a detailed overview of 40 years in the Victorian era in which British life was transformed beyond recognition ... The book demonstrates a depth of research … letting the evidence speak for itself ... this pacy account will have you gripped.

Daily Mail

A wholehearted celebration of [the Victorians'] refusal to accept the inevitability of suffering and injustice … This is a serious book about the lasting value of seriousness. Engaging, and finally moving, it is a remarkable achievement.

Prospect