Summary

The Victorians have had a terrible press. We think of them today as a pompous, prudish, buttoned-up bunch of moralising do-gooders. But they were in fact a romantic, adventurous, creative, and inventive people who made this country the richest and most powerful nation on earth. Now they have a passionate advocate in the form of Jeremy Paxman - a former sceptic who grew up filled with disdain for the era, but who's recently come to see it as the glorious pinnacle of our culture.