Gladstone was not always a Grand Old Man, but like Victoria he grew in old age into a kind of public icon, a symbol of his century and of his country's imperial age (though he was not by nature an imperialist). He bridged several generations, coming to maturity when Peel and Wellington were still active, and living into the age of Asquith and Balfour. The son of a Liverpool businessman, he shone at Oxford where he became a good classical scholar, and was affected by the religious awakening and schisms of the time, though he remained largely true to his Evangelical background. Tennyson and Newman were his contemporaries, while Disraeli was his great rival, who gained the ear of Queen Victoria when she turned against Gladstone after her husband's death. Gladstone lived in an age of great European statesman and of a wealth of political talent in England; it was his special genius to reconcile liberalism - one of the strongest forces of the 19th century - with his Christian heritage, and somehow to balance morality with Realpolitik. His marriage was happy, and though he was susceptible to the charms of women, he kept himself under steely self control and expended his surplus physical energy in chopping down trees (and big trees some of them were too, as an illustration in this book shows). Ireland owes him a real debt, which it has not always acknowledged. Incidentally, Roy Jenkins's version of the Parnell Affair - which affected Gladstone and the Liberals greatly, as he was then their ally - is interesting in its own right, since he does not always follow the accepted views or version. This biography won the Whitbread Biography of the Year Award and does full justice to a giant.