Faithful Victorian

This book weaves William Thomas Thornton'slife story into the larger themes of his diverse writings whose purpose was toexpose ambiguities and contradictions in politics, economics, metaphysics andreligion. Thornton was a poet, an intrepid traveler, abiographer, an essayist, an imperial mandarin, and a dutiful family man. Thorntonjoined the East India Company in the mid-1830s, rising to become Secretary ofthe India Office s Department of Public Works. Thisstudy uses Thornton s letters and other recently-discovered primary material toprovide a fascinating account that returns his compelling life to the center ofnineteenth-century British intellectual thought.