Winner:
Wolfson Prize for History 1999
James Stern Silver Pen Award
for Non-Fiction 1999.

‘This is a biography of quite unusual quality and insight, tautly organised yet flowing easily, with years of research behind it to reinforce its authority. While not seeking to diminish either Gladstone or Disraeli, it restores Salisbury to the commanding position he rightfully occupied in Victorian politics’. Prof. Peter Clarke, Sunday Times

‘Roberts’ mastery of his sources, combined with his ability to vary the tone and colour of his very long narrative has resulted in both a fascinating political history and an engaging character study. Roberts has ranged far and wide over unpublished sources to give the most rounded portrait possible of Salisbury. Roberts’s Salisbury is a book worthy to place besides John Morley’s Gladstone and Robert Blake’s Disraeli’. Mark Bostridge, Independent on Sunday

‘This is one to put on one’s shelf alongside Ehrman’s Younger Pitt, Gash’s volumes on Peel and Blake’s Disraeli .. Andrew Roberts’s book has the balance, insight, all-roundedness and intellectual elegance of Lord Salisbury himself.’ AD Harvey, The Salisbury Review

‘Although constructed on a massive scale, Roberts’s book is so beautifully written that one would not wish it a page shorter. It is unlikely ever to be superseded.’ Prof. Vernon Bogdanor, Times Higher Education Supplement

‘Salisbury deserves, and has found, a fine biographer, who has left no stone unturned in his researches, has written cogently and well about his subject, and provided not just a history of Lord Salisbury, but one of the best histories yet of Victorian Britain and her place in the world.’ Simon Heffer, Daily Mail

‘This is a superb biography of a largely neglected prime minister. Scholarly and well written, it fills a notable gap in Victorian historiography.’ Robert Blake, The Oldie Books of the Year

‘Mr Roberts confirms that he is the finest living non-academic historian of Tories, and perhaps of British politics in general, which should not be taken as suggesting that the academic ones are better.’ Frank Johnson, Spectator Book of the Year

‘Salisbury: Victorian Titan is a great biography, magisterially proportioned, and fit to take its place with Gash on Peel and Blake on Disraeli, if not with Morley’s Gladstone. Moreover, although constructed on a massive scale, it is so beautifully written that one would not want it a page shorter. It is unlikely ever to be superseded.’ Prof. Vernon Bogdanor, Times Higher Educational Supplement

‘The biography of 1999 was undoubtedly Salisbury: Victorian Titan by Andrew Roberts, a heavyweight treatment, in great detail, of the shy, bearded ultra-conservative Prime Minister who dominated the last decade of the 19th century. Roberts does him full justice.’ Paul Johnson, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

‘A remarkable work in which great sweeps of history are deftly handled. A titanic biography of truly Victorian scale.’ Ben Pimlott,The Guardian

‘Roberts succeeds triumphantly in his purpose, which is to restore Salisbury to the centre of the political stage. Roberts makes no secret of his sympathy for his subject, and he writes a readable, fluent narrative. This is an affectionate, admiring, detailed portrait of a neglected giant.’ Jane Ridley, The Spectator

‘Roberts has done Salisbury proud. Based on comprehensive research, this is an outstanding achievement: fluent, weighty in the Victorian mode, sympathetic but not uncritical, often hilarious. Seldom has such an important study been such splendid entertainment.’ Dr Piers Brendon, Independent

‘Roberts triumphantly retrieves Salisbury from unmerited obscurity with a book which is as delightful to read as it is informative.’ Dr Niall Ferguson, Mail on Sunday

‘Salisbury: Victorian Titan is a very fine book by a learned and elegant writer who, at age thirty-six, has already distinguished himself as an outstanding practioner of the British art of non-academic history-writing.’ David Frum, The Weekly Standard

It’s a terrific piece of biography; I really enjoyed it.’ Jeremy Paxman,Start The Week

‘Andrew Roberts’s Salisbury fills a most remarkable gap in British historiography with a study that is not only learned and comprehensive but startlingly well-written.’ Sir Michael Howard,
Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year

‘Roberts does full justice to Salisbury’s massive personality: pessimistic, inscrutable, deeply ironic, self-confident, brutally funny.’Roy Foster, Evening Standard

‘In this majestic and readable biography, Andrew Roberts brings Salisbury to life as the highly complex, intelligent and depressive personality that he was – a devout, perceptive, principled High Tory, endowed with his full share of low cunning.’ David Goodall, The Tablet

‘Andrew Roberts’s Salisbury is an incomparable vade-mecum to the Conservative state of being, with all that sense of pace, drama and paradox which distinguishes a first-rate biography.’ Jonathan Keates, Spectator Books of the Year

‘Andrew Roberts’s sparkling and authoritive biography of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury provides the key to the understanding of some of the Tory party’s present problems over foreign policy.’Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, The Times

‘Excellent’ Conrad Black, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

‘Suberb’ Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

‘Excellent’ David Owen, New Statesman Books of the Year

‘Roberts combines scholarship with caustic humour . reading Salisbury is an unmitigated pleasure.’ Derek Turner, Chronicles

‘It captures the essence of Salisbury in a way that nothing has ever done for me before.’ Roy Jenkins, Financial Times

‘Roberts set out to fill the largest historiographical gap in modern British political biography and has succeeded brilliantly.’ Ian McIntyre, The Times

‘Andrew Roberts has now brought Salisbury out of the shadows with this scholarly portrait. He has captured the essence of the peer in an important, highly readable work.’ Michael Rhodes, Yorkshire Post

‘I have to salute Roberts’s achievement in making Salisbury not only live as as an historical character but also act as a spokesman, from beyond the grave, for the present generation of not-so-young fogeys.’ Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

‘Roberts deals with the whole man, while also giving a brilliant account of the interplay of personalities during Salisbury’s career.’John Grigg, Sunday Telegraph

‘The great strength of Roberts’s biography, which deals admirably with all the crucial episodes in Salisbury’s career, is that a substantial part of it is devoted to the period before Salisbury could have been thought of as a ‘Titan’.’ Asa Briggs, Literary Review

‘This biography is also something of a political pamphlet, a sophisticated rallying cry for disoriented modern Toryism.’Economist

‘Andrew Roberts has produce a superbly written and wonderfully exciting biography of Lord Salisbury, three times Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister.’ Will Podmore, Morning Star

‘It is splendid to have an up-to-date, fully finished and very well-written Life based on thorough research into the archives.’ Robert Blake, Daily Telegraph

‘Andrew Roberts’s magisterial and meticulously researched biography is simply wonderful.’ Claus von Bòlow, Catholic Herald

‘Salisbury is brought out from the shadows of those other, more fizzy Victorian political titans, Disraeli and Gladstone, in this absolutely definitive work by Andrew Roberts.’ John Patten, Country Life

‘A great Prime Minister, a great character and a great book.’ John Pollock, Church of England Newspaper

‘Roberts is excellent both on the minute detail and the broad interpretation of Salisbury’s political life and achievements.’Nottingham Evening Post

‘Roberts has turned a massive amount of research into a sweeping read.’ David Sexton, Evening Standard