Did she dare become his wife for real? Katherine's marriage seems perfect. Her husband, Jordan, is handsome, charming and wealthy and their home idyllic. However, in reality, theirs is a marriage of convenience. Katherine has been happy to accept this it's easy, comfortable and suits her needs. Now, one year into their arrangement, Katherine's peace of mind is shattered when Jordan demands that they be married in every sense. Dare Katherine agree? After all, it is not as if she hasn't wanted Jordan in ever sense. She simply has to face her memories of their wedding night and come to terms with her own all too "real" needs.
The official companion to the second season of the PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria by award-winning creator and screenwriter Daisy Goodwin. Airing in the Downton Abbey slot on PBS/Masterpiece last January, Victoria captivated millions of viewers, eclipsing Downton's first-season viewership and leaving its audience eager for the series's next season, which will focus on Victoria and Albert's passionate and tempestuous marriage. This official tie-in to the show, by creator and screenwriter Daisy Goodwin, gives a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show, featuring never-before-seen interviews, photos, diary entries, profiles on all major characters, and sumptuous detail on the costumes and props that bring Victoria and Albert's world to vivid life. Victoria and Albert follows this extraordinary relationship between two very different people—she impulsive, emotional, capricious; he cautious, self-controlled, and logical—whose devotion to each other was unparalleled in royal history. Taking fans deeper into the world of Victoria than ever before, Victoria and Albert: A Royal Love Affair is the ultimate gift for devotees of the show.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "[A] delectable double bio . . . Talk about Victoria’s secret. . . . A fascinating portrait of a genuine love match, but one in which the partners dealt with surprisingly modern issues.” —USA Today It was the most influential marriage of the nineteenth century—and one of history’ s most enduring love stories. Traditional biographies tell us that Queen Victoria inherited the throne as a naïve teenager, when the British Empire was at the height of its power, and seemed doomed to find failure as a monarch and misery as a woman until she married her German cousin Albert and accepted him as her lord and master. Now renowned chronicler Gillian Gill turns this familiar story on its head, revealing a strong, feisty queen and a brilliant, fragile prince working together to build a family based on support, trust, and fidelity, qualities neither had seen much of as children. The love affair that emerges is far more captivating, complex, and relevant than that depicted in any previous account. The epic relationship began poorly. The cousins first met as teenagers for a few brief, awkward, chaperoned weeks in 1836. At seventeen, charming rather than beautiful, Victoria already “showed signs of wanting her own way.” Albert, the boy who had been groomed for her since birth, was chubby, self-absorbed, and showed no interest in girls, let alone this princess. So when they met again in 1839 as queen and presumed prince-consort-to-be, neither had particularly high hopes. But the queen was delighted to discover a grown man, refined, accomplished, and whiskered. “Albert is beautiful!” Victoria wrote, and she proposed just three days later. As Gill reveals, Victoria and Albert entered their marriage longing for intimate companionship, yet each was determined to be the ruler. This dynamic would continue through the years—each spouse, headstrong and impassioned, eager to lead the marriage on his or her own terms. For two decades, Victoria and Albert engaged in a very public contest for dominance. Against all odds, the marriage succeeded, but it was always a work in progress. And in the end, it was Albert’s early death that set the Queen free to create the myth of her marriage as a peaceful idyll and her husband as Galahad, pure and perfect. As Gill shows, the marriage of Victoria and Albert was great not because it was perfect but because it was passionate and complicated. Wonderfully nuanced, surprising, often acerbic—and informed by revealing excerpts from the pair’s journals and letters—We Two is a revolutionary portrait of a queen and her prince, a fascinating modern perspective on a couple who have become a legend. BONUS: This edition contains a reader's guide.
As she did in her critically acclaimed The Last Days of the Romanovs, Helen Rappaport brings a compelling documentary feel to the story of this royal marriage and of the queen's obsessive love for her husband – a story that began as fairy tale and ended in tragedy. After the untimely death of Prince Albert, the queen and her nation were plunged into a state of grief so profound that this one event would dramatically alter the shape of the British monarchy. For Britain had not just lost a prince: during his twenty year marriage to Queen Victoria, Prince Albert had increasingly performed the function of King in all but name. The outpouring of grief after Albert's death was so extreme, that its like would not be seen again until the death of Princess Diana 136 years later. Drawing on many letters, diaries and memoirs from the Royal Archives and other neglected sources, as well as the newspapers of the day, Rappaport offers a new perspective on this compelling historical psychodrama--the crucial final months of the prince's life and the first long, dark ten years of the Queen's retreat from public view. She draws a portrait of a queen obsessed with her living husband and – after his death – with his enduring place in history. Magnificent Obsession will also throw new light on the true nature of the prince's chronic physical condition, overturning for good the 150-year old myth that he died of typhoid fever.
Using excerpts from her letters and diaries, this book shows the very human face of Queen Victoria, from spirited young princess to caring Queen, passionate bride and loving mother to great-grandmother of a royal dynasty who gave her name to the age of improvement.
This beautifully illustrated study places Prince Albert at the helm of the South Kensington project, the man whose vision and ambition gave us the V+A, the flagship of 'Albertopolis', London's cultural quarter for art, science and education.
The Victorian era is unquestionably one of the high points in the history of British art--and the culture of that period was defined, as much as anything, by the artistic tastes of Queen Victoria and her beloved Prince Albert. From Victoria's accession in 1837 to Albert's death in 1861, Buckingham Palace was known as "the headquarters of taste," and in a time when royal patronage was still essential to a successful artistic career, the pair enthusiastically collected paintings, sculpture, jewelry, and furniture from a wide range of British and European artists. Victoria & Albert presents the highlights of that extensive collection through more than four hundred beautifully produced full-color illustrations. In addition to the many artworks, both familiar and little-known, that Victoria and Albert collected, the book also features the monarchs' own creations, from paintings, drawings, and etchings to the loving souvenir albums they assembled to record their travels and commemorate the major events of their lives. Opening a window onto the lives of two people as passionate about art as they were about each other, Victoria & Albert will be a comprehensive resource for scholars of British art and the royal family.
