In this award-winning biography, Roy Jenkins brings Gladstone and his century vibrantly to life. Born in Liverpool in 1809, Gladstone lived until 1898, spending 63 of his 89 years in the House of Commons. He served for 27 years in the Cabinet, and was Prime Minister four times, a unique accomplishment. From his early career as a Conservative and then a Peelite, through his important role in the formation of the Liberal Party to his late preoccupation with the cause of Irish Home Rule, he was a commanding politician and became a statesman greater even then Peel and a Parliamentarian greater even then Disraeli. Gladstone has been perhaps the most complex individual ever to be Prime Minister. He was a classical scholar, a wide-ranging author, and a participant in all the great theological and liturgical debates of the day, claiming that religion was always more important to him than politics. Gladstone read over 20,000 books and, when not suffering one of his frequent bouts of illness, walked great distances and chopped down trees for recreation. But he was also, as his 70 years of sustained diaries show, a man obsessed with terrible feelings of his own sinfulness, prone to self-flagellation and an often misunderstood practice of accosting prostitutes and attempting to persuade them of the errors of their ways. Gladstone was a bestseller in the United Kingdom and winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize for biography. Written with the consummate grace of a gifted stylist, it offers a broad picture of a tumultuous century in British history. - Jacket flap.