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Queen Victoria: A Personal History
by: Christopher Hibbert

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780006388432
ISBN: 0006388434
Label: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Number Of Pages: 576
Publication Date: September 03, 2001
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Studio: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Sales Rank: 171974

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Heir to the throne at the age of 11, queen at 18, mothering her own heirs at 21, and both a widow and a grandmother by the time she was 42, Queen Victoria's was an extraordinary life, even for a British monarch. Centuries collided in her life and times. She was a quaint survival of a medieval age--preserving the dynasty by marrying off her children and observing court ritual to the letter. But she was a thoroughly modern monarch too--she loved rail travel at high speed, had an unusually insouciant attitude towards religion, and despite her reputation for not being amused, she was, at least until Prince Albert's death, a woman to whom gaiety and mischief came naturally. Christopher Hibbert, the biographer and popular historian, has already produced a selection from Victoria's journals and letters. Now he has written a full biography, which is a light and enjoyable tour through a familiar landscape. But with 66 chapters in 500 pages there is not much space for depth. The world beyond Victoria's court and family life does not feature very much. And on the outstanding questions of her reign--for example, her relationship with John Brown, her unrealistic sense of her own constitutional position, or the remaking of the image of the monarchy which took place after 1870--the author's verdict is either missing or inconclusive. --Miles Taylor

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Victoria, warts and all
After reading some glittering medieval and Tudor biographies, I wanted to fill in the gaps closer to our own day. Christopher Hibbert's comprehensive, readable biography is a good starting-point. However, as detractors have pointed out, it is short on political analysis. The emphasis is on "royal".

Hibbert sets the stage for Victoria's accession with a marvellous summary of how her various royal forebears failed to provide an heir, so that she succeeded by default. He delineates Queen Victoria's complex relationships with several Prime Ministers: her neediness with Lord Melbourne and Disraeli, antipathy towards Palmerston and Gladstone, respect for Salisbury. Unfortunately he does not clearly enough differentiate between Whigs ... Read More:

Rating:

- Victoria, warts and all
After reading some glittering medieval and Tudor biographies, I wanted to fill in the gaps closer to our own day. Christopher Hibbert's comprehensive, readable biography is a good starting-point.

He sets the stage for Victoria's accession with a marvellous summary of how her various royal forebears failed to provide an heir, so that she succeeded by default.

Hibbert delineates Queen Victoria's complex relationships with several Prime Ministers: her neediness with Lord Melbourne and Disraeli, antipathy towards Palmerston and Gladstone, respect for Salisbury. Unfortunately he does not clearly enough differentiate between Whigs and Tories. But he does acquaint the reader with the major political personalities and put you in ... Read More:

Rating:

- Hibbert notches up another admirable achievement
Christopher Hibbert, now aged 77, has 34 books to his credit. This staggering total presumably includes one or two lemons, but this reviewer has yet to find any. Hibbert's latest volume belongs with his very best, and defies anyone to read a single chapter without immediately gobbling up the next half-dozen.

It might be thought that Queen Victoria's two finest pre-Hibbert biographers, Elizabeth Longford and Stanley Weintraub, had between them exhausted their theme. Hibbert, though, draws on Royal Archives material which no previous book-length study has used. While the result compels no spectacular revisions of accepted verdicts, it periodically shines instructive new beams of light.

How did Victoria survive? Partly through ... Read More:

Rating:

- delightful, delectable and easily digestible
Christoper Hibbert once again shows himself to be one of the best popular historian writing today. In this personal portrait - for that is what it is, there are no complex political analyses here - he truthfully and intimately depicts one of the most significant world leaders of the post industrial world. By showing Victoria through the eyes of her family, household and ministers, Hibbert manages to deal impartially with the many "grey areas" of Victoria's life - the "John Brown" rumours, for example, are dealt with in a very informative and unbiased manner. Hibbert's method of using short, succinct chapters of no more than about 15 pages makes this an good book to read in bits to get a general feel for the issues and themes of Victoria's life and ... Read More:

Rating:

- Engagingly personal
This is a heavy book with lots of pages. The kind of book you look at and think, "I'll never get through this, but it might impress the friends".

However, it is so well written you find yourself moving quickly through the life of Victoria, Queen and Empress.

"Personal Biography" seems a strange title (surely all 'biography' is about a person) but it is very apt in this case. There are lots of books about Victoria which present her in a remote, almost institutionalised way. This book though gives us an intriguing look at her tempremant, joys, fears. The last chapter on her death and fraility is very moving.

The book does though too give a useful feel for the times both political and social that Victoria lived in (and ... Read More:

Books : Queen Victoria: A Personal History