Reviews for The Illustrated Queen Victoria

The average rating for The Illustrated Queen Victoria based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2007-09-27 00:00:00 Carnez Williams This is not in Lytton Strachey's crafty and mordant biography but he would have seen this and smirked his head off. When Queen Victoria got married, the joke going round the gentlemen's clubs of Mayfair was about the honeymoon train. It would be setting out from Waterloo, passing through Virginia Water and Bushey until arriving at Maidenhead, leaving Staines behind. (For those unfamiliar with the geography of the Home Counties, these are all small towns in the south of England.) When the British throne is occupied by a female person, there is always a strange story behind it, because, obviously, that should never happen. For there to be a Queen, a lot of men have to have died. How Victoria got to be Queen was really most convoluted and unlikely but she did. She was the great transition between monarchs who actually did something to monarchs who just represented something. I prefer them when they don't do anything at all, like Charles I after he was decapitated. They're the best sort.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-07-11 00:00:00 Brooke Clemens I found this a remarkable biography. It is quite short when one considers that it covers the longest reign in English History and the life of a monarch who lived 81 years. It works because Strachey focuses on the personality relationships that dominated that period--all of which centered upon the Queen. Thus we find chapters dealing with Lord Melbourne, Prince Albert (Chapters 4 through 6}, Lord Palmerston {in conjunction with the Prince Consort} Gladstone and Disraeli. In The central section the dominant character is Prince Albert and he is an enormously interesting character. While Strachey gives the Prince his due as an intelligent, clever man, he also presents him with considerable irony and implies that the early death of Albert was the best thing that could have happened to the Monarchy. After his death the story of Victoria is rather quickly told. Here, Strachey merely sketches--perhaps purposely--some quite interesting moments, especially the strange relationship between the straight-laced Queen and her servant, the burly, impolite whisky drinker John Brown who became her favourite at Balmoral Castle. There have always been rumours that Victoria secretly made a morganatic marriage with the Scotsman. When he died she seemed to regard his death as on a par with that of the Prince Consort. She filled the castle with mementos of him and even raised a life-sized statue in remembrance at Balmoral. Brown was hated by Victoria's son, who later became Edward VI. When he took the throne he eliminated all the mementos of John Brown and moved the statue to a nearly inaccessible part of the estate. You can still see it but it helps to get someone with local knowledge to guide you to the location. But the relationship may not have had any actual romantic element at all. Another reason that Victoria had such an interest in John Brown was owing to the fact that he was psychic and was supposedly able to contact the Prince Consort during seances. If this is true, then it would explain a great deal--including the remarkable liberties the queen allowed in the conduct of John Brown.