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Queen Victoria is the longest-reigning monarch in British history. In this concise biography, Lady Longford, long recognised as an authority on the subject, gives a full account of Queen Victoria's life and provides her unique assessment of the monarch. David Cannandine hailed her Victoria RI as 'pre-eminent in the genre...the commissed biography that the great Queen never got'. Victoria ascended the throne in 1837 on the death of her uncle William IV. In 1840, she married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and for the next twenty years they were inseperable. Their descendants were to succeed to most of the thrones of Europe. When Albert died in 1861, Victoria's overwhelming grief meant that she virtually withdrew from public life. This perceived dereliction of her duty, coupled with rumours about her relationship with her Scottish ghillie John Brown, led to increasing criticism. Coaxed back into the public eye by Disraeli, she resumed her former enthusiasm for political and constitutional matters with vigour until her death in 1901.… (more)
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923.1 VIC |
User reviews
I was relieved to discover that Elizabeth Longford was a meticulous biographer with a pleasant, no-nonsense writing style -- an added blessing in such a long book! Longford herself was a woman of strong liberal and social convictions and she tends to highlight the more enlightened views that Victoria held, or came to hold, over her long reign. However, while this is an empathetic account of the queen's life, Longford strives to provide a balanced picture of this complex and emotional person, including Victoria's less-than-serene family life, and her varying relationships with her various prime ministers. (Those with even a passing familiarity with the life of Queen Victoria probably know that she got on well with Disraeli and barely got on at all with Gladstone.) The monarch's controversial friendship with Balmoral servant John Brown is also thoroughly covered. Longford is evidently keen to disprove that the latter had any connection with spiritualism and argues the point at least three times when the first time was adequate.
Very long, but very thorough, and very readable.
"Life's dream is past,
All its sin, its sadness.
Brightly at last,
Dawns a day of gladness. [Tennyson}