Victoria: The Young Queen [Hardcover]

Monica Charlot (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1991

Using Victoria's private journals and correspondence, Charlot aims to draw an intimate portrait of the queen who, she argues, was a woman of warmth and sincerity and not the repressive matriarch of popular myth. The book also shows the queen coming to grips with the political demands of her rule in her early years, and describes the role of her husband in administering the realm and managing the family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Intriguing for its fresh information but often dizzying in its cascade of names and titles, this account of royal relationships in 19th-century Britain and how they produced heirs to the throne and shaped public policy is the first volume in a projected biography. Examining the life of Victoria (1819-1901) until the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861, Charlot credits the young queen with greater political acumen than do many other historians, and she demonstrates that her subjects and members of the court were not nearly so "Victorian" in their morals as is commonly believed. Legitimate heirs were scarce, Charlot writes, because so many royal males chose to father children out of wedlock. She avers that Victoria virtually held the empire together during the Crimean War, through mutiny in India and while Albert's popularity plummeted. A history professor at the University of Paris, Charlot garnered much information from letters and memoirs in the Royal Archives, to which she was granted access by Queen Elizabeth.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This work, the first volume in what is projected as a major biographical undertaking, is the most important treatment of Queen Victoria's early years yet to appear. Its careful research includes extensive use of the Royal Archives at Windsor. The book infuses new vitality into the reputation of the woman who has long (and wrongly) been associated with the adjective, drawn from her name, that evokes images of primness and overbearing prudery. Here she emerges as a warm, even passionate, personality, and Prince Albert seems the real family prude. More importantly, we are offered a fresh view of Victoria and her early reign that supplants the depictions in earlier lives such as Cecil Woodham-Smith's Queen Victoria, 1819-1861 ( LJ 11/1/72) and Lady Elizabeth Longford's Queen Victoria: Born to Succeed ( LJ 1/1/65). Highly recommended.
- Jim Casada, Winthrop Coll., Rock Hill, S.C.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 500 pages
• Publisher: Blackwell Pub (November 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631174370
• ISBN-13: 978-0631174370
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,447,856 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #67 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > British > Queen Victoria

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the semi-literate, January 18, 2010

By 

Boetius "Vlad" (Riverdale, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Victoria: The Young Queen (Hardcover)

I have to disagree completely with the other review of this book currently on Amazon.com. True, it is not written in the tabloid styling of other more superficial and frankly useless biographies of Victoria. Rather, Charlot is a genuine scholar; she takes her footnotes and sources seriously, and she approaches historical issues as a historian rather than as a writer for People Magazine. Charlot has done an excellent job of explicating Victoria's personal life set against the background of the events of her early reign. A key figure, of course, is Albert, about whom Charlot is less than enthusiastic and to whom she attributes many of Victoria's insecurities because of his paternalism and belief in male supremacy. While at times she tends to overstate Albert's proclivities in these directions, her work is generally convincing and satisfying for those who like to read real history, and are bored with the kind of photo-rich, superficial works about royalty that actually appear to be aimed at those with fantasies of becoming a Disney Princess. This is good history, and a good book. In fact, I perused the entry at Amazon, because I was seeking additional works by this fine author. Highly Recommended!!

1.0 out of 5 stars The most difficult book I've ever attempted to read., August 5, 2008

By 

princess nix (Richmond, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Victoria: The Young Queen (Hardcover)

I tried to love this book. The reviews on the back cover were chosen well by the publicist. I don't imagine that the reviews not chosen were as kind. The book seems to be written in the period of time that it covers, making it incredibly difficult to follow. The other problem is that the author attempts to give such detailed back-stories on the people surrounding Victoria that the book ends up being more about them than it is about her. I got about 100 pages into the book before I gave up, and I will be finding another book about her to read. I've been an avid reader for most of my life and this is only the third book that, as an adult, I've ever given up on.