"A tour de force, rendered in some of the most delightful scholarly prose I have read in many a year... What makes this journey through Spencer's multi-faceted thought such pleasure is, in fact, the intrepid Francis. With the hard-won wisdom of the long-time companion Francis is fully aware of the faults and stratagems of his elusive subject, and thus is well qualified to disambiguate unreliable narratives. Francis never reaches for a simplistic or facile summation when a nuanced, context-sensitive explication is required - which, in the case of a slippery, contradictory, obfuscatory personality such as Spencer's, is pretty much all the time. Most refreshing, Francis maintains a profound compassion, even affection, for a man whose personal life was an abject failure." - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "This is a monumental, painstakingly scrupulous, and innovative study, based on a complete grasp of Spencer's corpus and a thorough use of archives relating to his circle and period... A work of intellectual biography which is powerful, illuminating and original." - Melissa Lane, Princeton University "The publication of Mark Francis's volume marks a significant moment not just for Spencer scholarship but for all historians of late nineteenth-century science... A great achievement ... the book that Spencer studies has needed for quite some time." - British Journal for the History of Science "With his thorough and well-researched intellectual biography of Spencer, Mark Francis relocates Spencer as an outstanding philosopher in his time, and rightly shows that Spencer has been enigmatically misinterpreted... Francis has produced an important and intellgent book not only on Spencer, but also on his political, scientific, social, and religious context in mid-Victorian Britain. In relocating the assumptions about Victorian politics, social science, and evolutionary biology, this work deserves a wide audience, within and well beyond historical scholarship." - The Historical Journal "A book of careful and incisive scholarship ...a full and accomplished piece of intellectual history." - Political Studies "Francis has performed an enormous service to historians of science and Victorianists, and Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life deserves our close attention." - Isis "Thanks to Francis' dazzling scholarship we now know far more about this major figure in the foundation of evolutionary theory, sociology and psychology. Francis must be praised for his industry and scholarly endeavour that have brought this long neglected figure back to life." - Australian Journal of Political Science "Mark Francis has done both Spencer himself, and Spencer scholars, a great service in producing a magisterial study which is likely to remain a standard reference on its subject for many years to come." - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences "A detailed examination that is particularly useful for understanding the formative context of Spencer's early writings." - Journal of Modern History "An impressive critical survey of Spencer's work and its reception. Francis argues convincingly that Spencer is seriously misremembered as an apologist for individualism and raw capitalism." - Canadian Journal of History "A stunning revelation of a personality and thinker about whom even most well informed Victorianists evaluate largely from misinformation. This book presents an entirely new understanding of Spencer. Scholars from a number of fields - philosophy, literature, history, and history of science - will quite simply never be able to think of Spencer as they have before. Wonderfully and persuasively revisionist, backed up by superb research, this will be the book on Spencer for the present and next generation." - Frank M. Turner, Yale University "A major new study of Herbert Spencer, revealing aspects of his personality and thought previously little explored. It is an impressive work of scholarship and interpretation which all scholars of nineteenth-century thought cannot afford to neglect." - David Boucher, Cardiff University

Mark Francis is Professor of Political Science at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Preface List of Illustrations Introduction Part I An Individual and his Personal Culture 1. A Portrait of a Private Man 2. The Longing for Passion 3. The Problem with Women 4. Feminist Politics 5. Culture and Beauty 6. Eccentricities: Health and the Perils of Recreation Part II The Lost World of Spencer's Metaphysics 7. The New Reformation 8. Intellectuals in the Strand 9. The Genesis of a System 10. Common Sense in the Mid-Nineteenth Century 11. From Philosophy to Psychology Part III Spencer's Biological Writings and his Philosophy of Science 12. On Goodness, Perfection and the Shape of Living Things 13. The Meaning of Life 14. Science and the Classification of Knowledge Part IV Politics and Ethical Sociology 15. The Spencerian Foundations of Liberalism 16. Early Victorian Radicalism 17. Sociology as an Ethical Discipline 18. Sociology as Political Theory 19. Progress 'versus' Democracy Notes Bibliography Index