This was the first major biography of Queen Victoria in more than forty years and it contains much material that had not been available before. In writing it, Lady Longford (1906 - 2002), a leading historian of her time, had unrestricted access to the Royal Archives and drew on unpublished passages from Queen Victoria's celebrated journals, as well as from many private collections. This brilliantly informed and perceptive narrative shows the young Queen tormented by an unhappy childhood, enraptured by a love match, tantalized by a brief marriage, driven by the shock of the Prince Consort's death into a long retirement. Then, impelled by an iron sense of duty, the secluded widow emerges at last - to rule her vast Empire as a mother and her large, high-spirited family as a Queen. Victoria and Albert, Melbourne and flora Hastings, Gladstone and Disraeli, John Brown and the Munshi - a whole galaxy of notable personalities stand forth as colorful individuals, freshly assessed. And Queen Victoria preserves the fascinating interweaving of State with family affairs which characterized the Queen's unprecedented career. Queen Victoria is apt to be dismissed in the twentieth century as an idol. Elizabeth Longford's full, frank portrait, rendered with affection and respect, reveals a fascinating and complicated person - a woman of diminutive stature and superabundant temperament. - from Amzon