Book excerpt: This biography presents an intimate picture of Stephen Gladstone, the previously ignored son of Prime Minister William Gladstone, whose life was tormented by the expectations and interference of his father, his mother Catherine and his sister Mary. It sets his fascinating character, caught between duty and self-doubt, firmly in its historical context, tracing his progress through the horrors of a 19th-century prep school, his 32 years as the reluctant and restless Rector of Hawarden, his mysteriously acquired final incumbency and the desolating personal effects of the First World War.