50 book challenge: #50.

#50: Lytton Strachey: Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History. The funny thing about reading Eminent Victorians is that today it can be hard to understand intuitively why it was so innovative. E&E has a different quality, though - today, people still don't write history like this. Maybe it's viewed as too speculative, presumptuous (in speculating about motives or feelings), or just plain pretentious. For me, though, even if a historical narrative/argument is tendentious, I like it if it at least gives me a definite view - something to push back against. That kind of quality can be a good aide de memoire, if nothing else. Anyway, that's one of the reasons why this is such a fine work. I don't know anything about current opinion of the work's merits. I have a multivolume Strachey biography sitting on my shelves that I hope to get around to, someday.