Queen Victoria - Softcover

Strachey, Lytton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1503014452 ISBN 13: 9781503014459

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

This superb biography of Queen Victoria gives the essentials of Victoria's life in a most pleasant prose style. It is not a stuffy biography that gets bogged down in details, but instead a charming, well-written life chronicle that is delightful to read. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality. Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. Queen Victoria's reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than that of any of her predecessors, and is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover. Her son and successor, Edward VII, initiated the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father.

About this title

Review:

"Hilarious social commentary...If all biographies were like Strachey's, they would probably kill off the novel altogether."

From the Back Cover:

No other biography, before or since, gives as delightful and comprehensive an account of Queen Victoria and her reign. Here is the full panorama of Victoria's life--her childhood, her marriage to Albert, and her majestic domination of a colorful court circle--told with the author's now-famous flair for throwing 'a sudden revealing searchlight into the obscure recesses, hitherto undivined.'Hailed by critics as a brilliant new kind of biography, Queen Victoria stands as one of the literary landmarks of this century.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1503014452
• ISBN 13: 9781503014459
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200