For Queen and Country

by Margaret Drabble

A look at British culture during the age of Queen Victoria.

Genres: History

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Dame Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of eighteen novels including A Summer Bird-Cage, The Millstone, The Peppered Moth, The Red Queen, The Sea Lady and most recently, the highly acclaimed The Pure Gold Baby. She has also written biographies, screenplays and was the editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She was appointed CBE in 1980, and made DBE in the 2008 Honours list. She was also awarded the 2011 Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd.

Drabble famously has a long-running feud with her novelist sister, A.S. Byatt. The pair seldom see each other, and each does not read the books of the other.

Reviews

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must be born out of my time; surely I must be a Victorian? Their many pictures on the walls, variety of artefacts around their rooms and the cluttered state of such fit me perfectly! Margaret Drabble wanders in depth through Victorian England, looking at the Queen's reign in its entirety, the middle classes, the Great Exhibition and the Arts. And although the last mentioned puts Britain at the forefront of Victorian creativity, in literature particularly, Margaret Drabble believes that the single biggest and possibly most important discovery of the 19th century was Darwin's discovery of the theory of evolution. Interesting!

[Lynne-marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am sure this is a very well-produced book for what it is meant to be, but it simply was not what I expected it to be. The card catalog listed it as an explication of the Victorian era by one of Britain leading literary lights. Knowing as I did that she is the sister of A.S. Byatt who produced the prodigious Victorian masterpiece Possession, I assumed the best. It was instead a part of a middle school, or perhaps high school history series for youngsters. What a let-down. Full of information, but at 33 1/3 rpm's!

[Denise Spicer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1978, this book provides a brief biography of Queen Victoria and also discusses the rise of the middle class. Despite the problems of poverty, the overall general standard of living improved. The author also covers the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace, an overview of the arts, and ends her treatise with her own perspective that the Victorian concept of the theory of evolution was “the single greatest discovery of the 19th century.” (page 133)

[Karen (Living Unabridged) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't age well.