Jessica Mann
A Familiar Tale Well Told Again
Queen Victoria
By Christopher Hibbert
HarperCollins 557pp £25
If you know about Queen Victoria’s life, this book will confirm the details; if you do not, it is a good introduction. But even first-time readers are bound to have a package of familiar mental images. Highlights of Victoria’s life and times have appeared in countless movies and novels, beginning with the famous scene when the eighteen- year-old girl receives dignitaries in her dressing gown and is told she has become Queen. Then come tales of her jealous mother, devoted governess, wicked uncles and strict court; the intellectual flirtation with the Prime Minister, Melbourne, and the ‘bedchamber crisis’ when she refuses to accept his successor; malicious gossip about Lady Flora Hastings, suspected of pregnancy when she has a fatal tumour; the Queen asking Prince Albert to marry her because etiquette forbids him to propose; the mother of nine, who defies the Bible’s pronouncement ‘in sorrow shall she bring forth children’ and says: ‘We are having the baby, we shall have the chloroform.’
The Prince Consort dies of typhoid, she heaps the blame on her scapegrace heir and luxuriates in self-indulgent grief for decades, the reclusive Widow of Windsor and the target of more cartoons and criticism than any other modern monarch. Disraeli delivers an empire; John Brown dares to be rude. At last redeemed in public opinion by old age, she is seen as the Grandmother of Europe, famously ‘not amused’.
Queen Victoria’s circumstances make us interested in and even fond of her, despite characteristics that would have been called hysterical, selfish, domineering and unkind in any less exalted individual. But she was also candid and unaffected (at least in her journals), industrious and capable of great common sense. Whatever her
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Under its longest-serving editor, Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair was that rare thing – a New York society magazine that published serious journalism.
@PeterPeteryork looks at what Carter got right.
Peter York - Deluxe Editions
Peter York: Deluxe Editions - When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter
literaryreview.co.uk
Henry James returned to America in 1904 with three objectives: to see his brother William, to deliver a series of lectures on Balzac, and to gather material for a pair of books about modern America.
Peter Rose follows James out west.
Peter Rose - The Restless Analyst
Peter Rose: The Restless Analyst - Henry James Comes Home: Rediscovering America in the Gilded Age by Peter Brooks...
literaryreview.co.uk
Vladimir Putin served his apprenticeship in the KGB toward the end of the Cold War, a period during which Western societies were infiltrated by so-called 'illegals'.
Piers Brendon examines how the culture of Soviet spycraft shaped his thinking.
Piers Brendon - Tinker, Tailor, Sleeper, Troll
Piers Brendon: Tinker, Tailor, Sleeper, Troll - The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West by Shaun Walker
literaryreview.co.uk