In matters of character Victorians prized respectability, earnestness, a sense of duty and public service; most would have regarded an industrious, pious conventionality as the best road not only to material recompense but to heavenly rewards as well. ...

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• Approx Pages: 27

A strong social ethic, continued from the Victorian times of Dickens and Disraeli, began increasingly to influence the political character of the country and its institutions. ... After the hostile reception of his tragic and bitter novel Jude the Obscure in 1895, he devoted himself largely to poetry and poetic drama until his death in 1928. ...

• Word Count: 10566
• Approx Pages: 42