Review
------
[A] splendid biography - this book is a gem:
thoughtful, witty, inful, striking a balance between
political commentary and personal gossip... As this terrific
biography shows, there really was a human being behind the gloomy
portraits. --Dominic Sandbrook, Evening Standard
Subtle, thoughtful ... a shimmering and rather wonderful
biography --Kathryn Hughes, Guardian
Wilson is affectionately alert to the rich contradictions of his
subject's personality, and his deliciously readable biography
becomes increasingly fascinating as Victoria's reign unfolds. -
Jane Shilling, Daily Mail --Book of the Week
This superb revisionist biography is the book that he was born to
write. Wilson clearly loves and admires his subject, but this is
a critical biography - funny, inful, original and
authoritative. At last Victoria has been rescued from her widow's
weeds. --Jane Ridley, Spectator
A. N. Wilson brings his novelist's perception and immense
knowledge of the era to his effervescent biography of the tiny
woman (4ft 11in) who ruled Britain for 61 years... This won't be
the last biography of Victoria but it is certainly the most
interesting and original in a long time. --Daisy Goodwin, Sunday
Times
Ninety-five years ago, the standard was set by Lytton Strachey's
lucid and moving Queen Victoria but A. N. Wilson has now raised
the bar... And what a pity she never met A. N. Wilson: she shines
in his company ... [this] expansive and victorious book.
--Frances Wilson, Daily Telegraph
A. N. Wilson has written a sympathetic but by no means
hagiographic biography of her that will probably overturn many
people's prejudiced conception of her... Wilson's picture of her
is a rounded one, with her vices and virtues. --Theodore
Dalrymple, The Times
A biographer of Queen Victoria also needs to be a good historian,
with a confident grasp of the personalities and issues of
19th-century public life. Mr Wilson is at his best here... This
is a bracing biography of a bracing woman ... it undeniably
achieves its central to make us take Queen Victoria more
seriously. --Michael Hall, Country Life
Wilson is an excellent history teacher. He orders and narrates
the hugely complex socio-political events and party infighting of
the 19th century with a rare clarity... His own achievement,
sustained by a lifetime's scholarly fascination with the
Victorian era, is also in its way, awesome. --John Sutherland,
Financial Times
Few if any previous biographers have viewed her as incisively and
absorbingly as Wilson does in his... smoothly flowing
of the queen's long life. The considerable detail he brings to
his greatly balanced portrait not only strengthens his estimation
of the significance of the queen in British governmental history
but also successfully conveys for the general reader all the
nuances of character that Wilson so carefully shares. --Brad
Hooper, Booklist, starred review
Book Description
----------------
The first comprehensively researched biography of
Queen Victoria ever, by one of Britain's best biographers. This
magnificent biography sheds new light on Victoria not just as a
queen, but as a woman.