Victoria and Albert [Hardcover]

Richard Alexander Hough (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1996

A biography of the sixty-four-year reign of Queen Victoria and her twenty-one-year marriage to Prince Albert examines how the queen and the marriage changed and influenced British society and the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A challenge for readers of Hough's brief life of the royal couple will be to fathom the meaning of the subtitle. "Love" is obvious enough: their arranged marriage to ensure an orderly succession quickly became a passionate one. The tragedies they shared, however, boil down to one?Albert's death at 42, which left Victoria, with half her life still to live, a widow. Having accomplished biographies of eminent partners before (Edward and Alexandra; Winston and Clementine), Hough is practiced at the form and slides easily into his abbreviated narrative, largely told from Victoria's perspective. Nevertheless, his tale is the oft-told one, with few pages unfamiliar to those acquainted with earlier biographies. Nine children are born; two royal dwellings outside London are built (Osburne and Balmoral); a world's fair is arranged successfully at the striking new "Crystal Palace" in Hyde Park; a title?Prince Consort?is granted to Albert by his wife; they survive marital spats, often over the education of the dullard heir to the throne; in 1861, Albert dies. It's all competently told, but there's little new here. Illustrations.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Here's a pleasant change: an account of a happy royal marriage. Hough (Edward & Alexandra, St. Martin's, 1993) provides a breezy but balanced account of the 20 years Queen Victoria and her consort, Albert, spent together. Hough points out that theirs was a surprisingly ordinary marriage in many ways. They had fights, reconciliations, and underneath all a deep love and touching mutual dependence. Victoria and Albert, for all the overromanticism and prudery that are associated with their reigns, were real people in a real marriage. Some of Hough's conclusions beg for documentation, but on the whole this is a well-researched book. Joanna Richardson's Victoria and Albert (1977. o.p.) covers the same ground, though with some differences in interpretation. Libraries with the older title and limited interest in Victoriana need not add Hough's work, but it is a good optional purchase for public libraries serving Anglophiles.?Jean E.S. Storrs, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312148224
• ISBN-13: 978-0312148225
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,509,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #64 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > British > Queen Victoria