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Kings and Queens of England
The Life and Times of Victoria
A biography of Queen Victoria.
224 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 17, 2022
4 stars- English Ebook
This book puts together a comprehensive view of the life of Queen Victoria.
Queen Victoria's life is covered completely, from her humble beginings and then throughout her long reign. Through reading this book you will see what made Queen Victoria so special in the lives of her countrymen.
One of the qualities of this book in addition to good solid writing is the amount of pictures, paintings, and publications that are in this book.
It includes not only formal well known publications, but also satire of the day. I believe that with this comprehensive view of Victoria you get a well rounded picture of her reign and how her subjects felt about her.
The book is comprehensive as it covers her whole life. Her very humble beginings, being ruled by her mother until she took the throne.
Influential people are discussed thoroughly. Marshell writes with an even hand discussing both the good qualities and the negative qualities of Victoria, and all of those who touched her life.
Throughout the book you get the sense that Victoria worked very hard for her country, and did the best that she could.
Her love for her husband, her children, and her country was boundless. She showed her love of her family and friends openly, even if at times there may have been reason not to demonstrate this love so fully.
But she had her own mind and personality.
I feel that reading this book you with gather a definate sense of who Queen Victoria was and what made her so special.
This book puts together a comprehensive view of the life of Queen Victoria.
Queen Victoria's life is covered completely, from her humble beginings and then throughout her long reign. Through reading this book you will see what made Queen Victoria so special in the lives of her countrymen.
One of the qualities of this book in addition to good solid writing is the amount of pictures, paintings, and publications that are in this book.
It includes not only formal well known publications, but also satire of the day. I believe that with this comprehensive view of Victoria you get a well rounded picture of her reign and how her subjects felt about her.
The book is comprehensive as it covers her whole life. Her very humble beginings, being ruled by her mother until she took the throne.
Influential people are discussed thoroughly. Marshell writes with an even hand discussing both the good qualities and the negative qualities of Victoria, and all of those who touched her life.
Throughout the book you get the sense that Victoria worked very hard for her country, and did the best that she could.
Her love for her husband, her children, and her country was boundless. She showed her love of her family and friends openly, even if at times there may have been reason not to demonstrate this love so fully.
But she had her own mind and personality.
I feel that reading this book you with gather a definate sense of who Queen Victoria was and what made her so special.
February 5, 2017
Because I'm watching the new "Victoria" series on PBS and felt there were a lot of "alternative facts," I pulled this from my bookshelf to read again. It's a quick run through of the highlights of Victoria's life with a lot of good photos. We've been to several places, following in Victoria's tiny footsteps, including Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, which I highly recommend. It was the most personal of her residences, and the Isle is beautiful.
February 13, 2010
The life of Victoria is fascinating. This book gave me exactly what I thought that it would: a not incredibly in depth introduction to an interesting woman. The pictures were good, and it makes me want to read a more thorough account of her life.
March 27, 2024
This is an introduction to the long life of Victoria spanning a period of tumultuous change but I found it rather patchy and disappointing overall. The impression given is that Victoria was heavily dependant upon the support of various men (mostly) such as Lord Melbourne, Prince Albert of course, her uncle King Leopold of Belgium, Benjamin Disraeli and John Brown.
In this book, Victoria comes across not as a strong decisive Queen of State but a person ruled ( and over-ruled) by her emotional state. The frequent references to her diary entries and personal correspondence reveal how over sentimental she could be and how out of touch she was with the majority of her subjects notwithstanding some examples of her concern for "her soldiers" or the masses who might overturn the order of society if not appeased from time to time.
This book, instead of encouraging more detailed study of Victoria, inspires only to consider further reading of Prince Albert.
In this book, Victoria comes across not as a strong decisive Queen of State but a person ruled ( and over-ruled) by her emotional state. The frequent references to her diary entries and personal correspondence reveal how over sentimental she could be and how out of touch she was with the majority of her subjects notwithstanding some examples of her concern for "her soldiers" or the masses who might overturn the order of society if not appeased from time to time.
This book, instead of encouraging more detailed study of Victoria, inspires only to consider further reading of Prince Albert.
April 21, 2023
This is a fairly comprehensive biography of Victoria. It was a pretty quick read and it was easy to follow. I read this for a class I'm taking right now so it was very helpful to understanding course material but I don't think I'd have read it otherwise. I don't have particularly strong feelings toward this book, but I don't think this would be the first book I would recommend to someone.
June 29, 2019
As a huge fan of the PBS series Victoria, I loved this largely pictorial overview of the life & reign of Queen Victoria. This book is ideal in giving the main people in her life story their time & context to that time. It’s a fast read & a great companion for anyone watching the series.
February 7, 2018
This was a short but thorough biography, complete with photos and newspaper clippings from her reign.
January 10, 2021
This was an excellent book on the life of Queen Victoria. As a lover of history it was so good to immerse myself on her life and learn more about her and her family.
March 17, 2023
This was a richly-illustrated and concise overview of the life, reign, and death of Queen Victoria. It portrayed her life as a mixture of happiness and despair and how long and successful it was.
January 11, 2014
I was using this book as an introduction to the icon that is Queen Victoria and it did that perfectly. There was a lot of information to cover what with her reign being so long and her being related to nearly everyone remotely royal. I still think she is an interesting character, but I feel like Prince Albert was the much more intriguing person.
He's in a foreign country with people who don't seem to respect him all that much throughout his whole career and life there. And still, he goes at the governing of this place with such gusto it makes me wonder if Queen Victoria did anything.
It seemed like she was just the signature on the paper. I mean, her childhood didn't allow her to learn how to do her job and know people, but still, she could have been active and learned about her countrymen. I liked how fond she was of the soldiers and awarded them all equally and in person. She seemed like a decent woman and wasn't a bad ruler. It's hard to really get her character with only a glimpse at her, so I will definitively read more about her.
The book itself was full of pictures of the monarch and her family. But they are of the usual variety, you have probably already seen them.
The only thing I had a problem with was how British it was. Every once in a while the author would mention something only a British, and at this point, an older British person, would know and that was sort of annoying. Usually, I really don't like it when the author inserts herself into the biography of someone I highly doubt she met at all in real life. But since this book was so short it didn't bother me too much.
Overall, a nice introduction to a monarch whose main contributions was having graced the world stage for so long, producing so many royal heirs, and a really big museum. But who knows, maybe with more reading I will change my opinion of her.
He's in a foreign country with people who don't seem to respect him all that much throughout his whole career and life there. And still, he goes at the governing of this place with such gusto it makes me wonder if Queen Victoria did anything.
It seemed like she was just the signature on the paper. I mean, her childhood didn't allow her to learn how to do her job and know people, but still, she could have been active and learned about her countrymen. I liked how fond she was of the soldiers and awarded them all equally and in person. She seemed like a decent woman and wasn't a bad ruler. It's hard to really get her character with only a glimpse at her, so I will definitively read more about her.
The book itself was full of pictures of the monarch and her family. But they are of the usual variety, you have probably already seen them.
The only thing I had a problem with was how British it was. Every once in a while the author would mention something only a British, and at this point, an older British person, would know and that was sort of annoying. Usually, I really don't like it when the author inserts herself into the biography of someone I highly doubt she met at all in real life. But since this book was so short it didn't bother me too much.
Overall, a nice introduction to a monarch whose main contributions was having graced the world stage for so long, producing so many royal heirs, and a really big museum. But who knows, maybe with more reading I will change my opinion of her.
July 14, 2011
This book delivered a broad understanding of its subject. Its a good starting point for those interested in the Queen and the times she lived and will leave most readers with the desire to go for a more in depth analysis of the subject.
October 19, 2016
I really liked the matter-of-fact tone this book had, focusing in the important details of Queen Victoria's life. I enjoyed the photos along with it as well. I wish it didn't seem to end so abruptly, but other than that I really enjoyed it and learned much!
October 2, 2016
The life of a British monarch is described in this book.
I found this book patchy - some sections were good but overall I found it dry / academic and felt that I hadn't gained much understanding (it wasn’t in-depth enough for me) of the person or the times when I'd finished.
I found this book patchy - some sections were good but overall I found it dry / academic and felt that I hadn't gained much understanding (it wasn’t in-depth enough for me) of the person or the times when I'd finished.
August 8, 2009
Interesting look at a defining era in Britain's cultural, social, and political history.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews