After the Victorians opens with a coronation at which ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ is played, and an expedition to the Himalayas: King Edward VII took the throne, Younghusband and his Maxim guns took Lhasa. It closes with a coronation at which ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ is played, and an expedition to the Himalayas: Elizabeth II took the throne, Hillary took the summit of Everest. By the second time round, the chorus of ‘Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set’ has, as A. N. Wilson points out, more of hope in it than expectation. We’d had the unimaginable slaughter of two world wars, the collapse of Britain’s industrial base and overseas dominions, and we were deeply in debt to a nuclear America. There were shortly to be two real empires, neither of them British.
The first thing to say about After the Victorians is that, like pretty much everything Wilson does, it is exceptionally well written and lively.
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