Victoria the queen : an intimate biography of the woman who ruled an empire
by Baird, Julia
Summary
A magnificent biography of Queen Victoria by International New York Times columnist Julia Baird. Drawing on previously unpublished papers, 'Victoria: The Queen' is a stunning new portrait of the real woman behind the myth - a story of love and heartbreak, of devotion and grief, of strength and resil... Full description
- Part 1. Princess Victoria: "Poor little victory". The birth of "pocket Hercules"
- The death of a father
- The lonely, naughty princess
- An impossible, strange madness
- "Awful scenes in the house"
- Part 2. The teenage queen. Becoming queen: "I am very young"
- The coronation: "a dream out of the Arabian nights"
- Learning to rule
- A scandal in the palace
- Part 3. Albert: the man some called king. Virago in love
- The bride: "I never, never spent such an evening"
- Only the husband, not the master
- The palace intruders
- King to all intents: "like a vulture into his prey"
- Perfect, awful, spotless prosperity
- Annus Mirabilis: the revolutionary year
- What Albert did: the Great Exhibition of 1851
- The Crimea: 'This unsatisfactory war'
- Royal parents and the dragon of dissatisfaction
- Part 4. The widow of Windsor. "There is no one to call me Victoria now"
- "The whole house seems like Pompeii"
- Resuscitating the widow at Windsor
- The queen's stallion
- The faery queen awakes
- Part 5. Regina imperatrix. Enough to kill any man
- Two ironclads colliding: the queen and Mr. Gladstone
- The monarch in a bonnet
- The "poor munshi"
- The diamond empire
- The end of the Victorian Age : "The streets were indeed a strange sight."