This is survey of the grandeur and the grime that made up the life of ""The Victorian Age."" A lively sense of irony on the part of the author is probably responsible for the organization of this material which conveys and underlines the sense of contrast -- wealth and poverty, art and excess, education and ignorance -- that marked the era. Industrialization, the growing strength of the professions and the manners of the middle class, the gentry and the poor are thoroughly covered.