Becoming Victoria
Becoming Victoria

Author: Lynne Vallone

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780300089509

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Part biography, part historical and cultural study, this richly illustrated volume uncovers in fascinating detail the childhood that Princess Victoria actually lived. Vallone shows readers a new Victoria--a lively and passionate girl very different from the iconic, dour widow of the queen's later life. 50 illustrations, 15 in color.

Queen Victoria: Twenty-Four Days That Changed Her Life
Queen Victoria: Twenty-Four Days That Changed Her Life

Author: Lucy Worsley

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2019-01-08

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1250201438

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The story of the queen who defied convention and defined an era A passionate princess, an astute and clever queen, and a cunning widow, Victoria played many roles throughout her life. In Queen Victoria: Twenty-Four Days That Changed Her Life, Lucy Worsley introduces her as a woman leading a truly extraordinary life in a unique time period. Queen Victoria simultaneously managed to define a socially conservative vision of Victorian womanhood, while also defying its conventions. Beneath her exterior image of traditional daughter, wife, and widow, she was a strong-willed and masterful politician. Drawing from the vast collection of Victoria’s correspondence and the rich documentation of her life, Worsley recreates twenty-four of the most important days in Victoria's life. Each day gives a glimpse into the identity of this powerful, difficult queen and the contradictions that defined her. Queen Victoria is an intimate introduction to one of Britain’s most iconic rulers as a wife and widow, mother and matriarch, and above all, a woman of her time.

Victoria & Abdul (Movie Tie-in)
Victoria & Abdul (Movie Tie-in)

Author: Shrabani Basu

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2017-08-29

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0525434410

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Now a Major Motion Picture starring Dame Judi Dench from director Stephen Frears. History’s most unlikely friendship—this is the astonishing story of Queen Victoria and her dearest companion, the young Indian Munshi Abdul Karim. In the twilight years of her reign, after the devastating deaths of her two great loves—Prince Albert and John Brown—Queen Victoria meets tall and handsome Abdul Karim, a humble servant from Agra waiting tables at her Golden Jubilee. The two form an unlikely bond and within a year Abdul becomes a powerful figure at court, the Queen’s teacher, her counsel on Urdu and Indian affairs, and a friend close to her heart. This marked the beginning of the most scandalous decade in Queen Victoria’s long reign. As the royal household roiled with resentment, Victoria and Abdul’s devotion grew in defiance. Drawn from secrets closely guarded for more than a century, Victoria & Abdul is an extraordinary and intimate history of the last years of the nineteenth-century English court and an unforgettable view onto the passions of an aging Queen.

Becoming Queen Victoria
Becoming Queen Victoria

Author: Kate Williams

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2010-08-10

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0345521935

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The perfect companion to the PBS Masterpiece series Victoria • A gripping account of Queen Victoria’s rise and early years in power from CNN’s official royal historian “Kate Williams has perfected the art of historical biography. Her pacy writing is underpinned by the most impeccable scholarship.”—Alison Weir In 1819, a girl was born to the fourth son of King George III. No one could have expected such an unassuming, overprotected girl to be an effective ruler—yet Queen Victoria would become one of the most powerful monarchs in history. Writing with novelistic flair and historical precision, Kate Williams reveals a vibrant woman in the prime of her life, while chronicling the byzantine machinations that continued even after the crown was placed on her head. Upon hearing that she had inherited the throne, eighteen-year-old Victoria banished her overambitious mother from the room, a simple yet resolute move that would set the tone for her reign. The queen clashed constantly not only with her mother and her mother’s adviser, the Irish adventurer John Conroy, but with her ministers and even her beloved Prince Albert—all of whom attempted to seize control from her. Williams lays bare the passions that swirled around the throne—the court secrets, the sexual repression, and the endless intrigue. The result is a grand tale of a woman whose destiny began long before she was born and whose legacy lives on. Praise for Becoming Queen Victoria “An informative, entertaining, gossipy tale.”—Publishers Weekly “A great read . . . With lively writing, Ms. Williams [makes] the story fresh and appealing.”—The Washington Times “Sparkling, engaging.”—Open Letters Monthly

Queen Victoria's Other World
Queen Victoria's Other World

Author: Peter Underwood

Publisher: Peter Underwood

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13:

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There have been many books about Queen Victoria but there has never been one that has explored her 'other world' - the world of the strange and unusual, the world of death and her fascination for it, and the world of the unseen and the paranormal that she could never resist. During his research Peter Underwood gained the distinct impression that there was something of a conspiracy of silence around her interest in the paranormal. however, there is overwhelming evidence that as a fatherless and bewildered princess, as a quickly matured queen, and then as a widowed and often lonely woman, Victoria showed a considerable interest in death and its draperies. This book covers Victoria's youthful encounters with the occult; her visits to haunted properties, her friends and acquaintances with similar interests and experiences; her alleged involvement with Robert Lees, the medium; her undoubted interest in the Jack-the-Ripper murders; her obsession with omens and superstitions and her fascination with death. Not long before his death the Prince Consort told the Queen, 'We don't know in what state we shall meet again, but that we shall recognise each other and be together in eternity I am perfectly certain'. Through forty years of widowhood Queen Victoria believed utterly that this would be so.

The Tallest Tower
The Tallest Tower

Author: Joseph Harriss

Publisher: Unlimited Publishing LLC

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9781588321022

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Newly updated history of the Eiffel Tower by a veteran international journalist, with photographs, bibliography, index. Chronicles the tower's design, construction and the historical context that made it a worldwide icon. Interesting story, interestingly told, wrote The New York Times.

Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter
Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter

Author: Lucinda Hawksley

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2015-12-08

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1466863900

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The secrets of Queen Victoria's sixth child, Princess Louise, may be destined to remain hidden forever. What was so dangerous about this artistic, tempestuous royal that her life has been documented more by rumor and gossip than hard facts? When Lucinda Hawksley started to investigate, often thwarted by inexplicable secrecy, she discovered a fascinating woman, modern before her time, whose story has been shielded for years from public view. Louise was a sculptor and painter, friend to the Pre-Raphaelites and a keen member of the Aesthetic movement. The most feisty of the Victorian princesses, she kicked against her mother's controlling nature and remained fiercely loyal to her brothers-especially the sickly Leopold and the much-maligned Bertie. She sought out other unconventional women, including Josephine Butler and George Eliot, and campaigned for education and health reform and for the rights of women. She battled with her indomitable mother for permission to practice the "masculine" art of sculpture and go to art college-and in doing so became the first British princess to attend a public school. The rumors of Louise's colorful love life persist even today, with hints of love affairs dating as far back as her teenage years, and notable scandals included entanglements with her sculpting tutor Joseph Edgar Boehm and possibly even her sister Princess Beatrice's handsome husband, Liko. True to rebellious form, she refused all royal suitors and became the first member of the royal family, since the sixteenth century, to marry a commoner. She moved with him to Canada when he was appointed Governor-General. Spirited and lively, Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter is richly packed with arguments, intrigues, scandals, and secrets, and is a vivid portrait of a princess desperate to escape her inheritance.