Victoria
Summary (from the publisher): “They think I am still a little girl who is not capable of being a Queen.”
Lord Melbourne turned to look at Victoria. “They are mistaken. I have not known you long, but I observe in you a natural dignity that cannot be learnt. To me, ma’am, you are every inch a Queen.”
In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria – sheltered, small in stature, and female – became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Many thought it was preposterous: Alexandrina — Drina to her family — had always been tightly controlled by her mother and her household, and was surely too unprepossessing to hold the throne. Yet from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled everyone: abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.
One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and critical: surely the last man she would want for a husband….
Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.
Lord Melbourne turned to look at Victoria. “They are mistaken. I have not known you long, but I observe in you a natural dignity that cannot be learnt. To me, ma’am, you are every inch a Queen.”
In 1837, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria – sheltered, small in stature, and female – became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Many thought it was preposterous: Alexandrina — Drina to her family — had always been tightly controlled by her mother and her household, and was surely too unprepossessing to hold the throne. Yet from the moment William IV died, the young Queen startled everyone: abandoning her hated first name in favor of Victoria; insisting, for the first time in her life, on sleeping in a room apart from her mother; resolute about meeting with her ministers alone.
One of those ministers, Lord Melbourne, became Victoria’s private secretary. Perhaps he might have become more than that, except everyone argued she was destined to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. But Victoria had met Albert as a child and found him stiff and critical: surely the last man she would want for a husband….
Drawing on Victoria’s diaries as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen even more richly to life in this magnificent novel.
Review: I received an early readers' edition of this novel as a giveaway on Goodreads.
This novel covers the early period of Queen Victoria's reign from the time she ascended the throne as an 18 year old in 1837 through courting Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, whom she would eventually married. Told in first person, it focuses heavily on Victoria's struggles as a young, female monarch including her relationship with her controlling mother and her perhaps overly familiar relationship with her prime minister, Lord Melbourne.
This author apparently used Victoria's diaries as a basis for the storyline and from my readings of several non-fiction works about Victoria, this novel does seem quite historically accurate. In particular, the tension felt between Victoria, her mother, and her mother's long-time friend Sir Conroy resonated with the historical records: "She would never forgive her mother for allowing Conroy to bully her like this. How could Mama not see that her own daughter was more important than that awful man?" (10). Similarly, the dependence and familiarity displayed between Victoria and Lord Melbourne was well known at the time, although the novel argues that Victoria was in love with him and even contemplated marriage, which I'm not sure is totally accurate but only speculation at the time.
My disappointments with this novel in many ways are the same as the ones I felt when reading Goodwin's earlier novel American Heiress. This reads as light chick lit rather than a full bodied and deeply researched work of historical fiction. Additionally, Victoria, although certainly flawed in real life, comes across as merely a petulant and spoiled teenager rather than a complicated young woman. Finally, the author seemed unsure of how to interweave historical details into the novel so rather than interspersing them in the storyline, some chapters will have long asides to detail family history and background information that the author clearly felt the reader might need for understanding.
Despite the propensity to focus works of historical fiction on royal figures, there does not seem an abundance written about Queen Victoria. I enjoyed the subject matter and time period that Goodwin chose for her novel and appreciated the research that gave this some historical accuracy. However, I was disappointed with the execution and the flippant persona of Queen Victoria that this first person narration conveyed. I am interested to see the PBS series based on this book and written by the author, since I do think the dramatic tension of this story and its characters will convey well to television and will make for an interesting show.
Stars: 3
Related Titles:
- American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin
- We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill
- Victoria's Daughters by Jerrold M. Packard
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