Victoria's Empire: A Journey Through the British Empire with Victoria Wood

by Victoria Wood

A personal journey through the old British Empire by the nation's favourite comedienne.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Audiobook, History, British Literature

302 pages, Hardcover

First published April 7, 2008

About the author

English comedian, actress, singer and songwriter, screenwriter and director.

Reviews

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a book tag-line so succinctly sum up exactly what it is about but this book is most definitely “a journey through the British Empire with Victoria Wood” and little else (not, of course, that I would want it to be anything else). The narrative takes you through the colonial histories of Ghana, Jamaica, Newfoundland, India, Hong Kong, Borneo, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia with a handy (and pleasantly vintage) map at the front. As well as the history, it looks at the social and economic results of British rule, the influence of imperialism and both the resentment and gratitude felt by the modern populace.

The book accompanies a television programme, presumably of the same name – I haven’t seen it but I would certainly be interested in watching it if I could find it. It comes complete with a decent amount of photographs (I love photo-sections of non-fiction books!), although many of the pictures look remarkably dated and old-fashioned – especially given that the book was only published in 2007.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I certainly learned a lot but I was disappointed to discover that Victoria Wood did not write it in its entirety (the word ‘with’ as opposed to ‘by’ in the title should have been a give-away and seems really obvious to me now. I feel very silly). I was expecting a pleasant history lesson laced with humour throughout but instead, I got three completely distinct narratives that if I am totally honest, jarred with each other.

The introductions to each chapter (and thus, each country) were written by Victoria Wood. They were short, humorous and easy to read but contained little other than personal anecdotes. The main body of the chapters alternated between dry, historical facts and figures presented in boxes, that read like a school text book and current, more socially aware narrative that seemed to focus primarily on modern views and read much like travel literature. The latter sections were definitely more enjoyable for me – not least because they contained the most emotion and relevance to modern day society.

The dry, historical sections seemed exactly that – arid and dull. They weren’t actually arid and dull of course – they were stocked full of exciting wars and different cultures – and that just goes to show the dryness of the narrative. I phased out in many of these sections and had to re-read them to understand what was going on. In some cases, I just carried on regardless of the fact that I wasn’t paying attention and it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference at all.

What was even more infuriating was the seeming lack of any editing of these sections at all (although only in these sections). There were typos and odd sentence formations which in themselves didn’t help me to focus and enjoy the information. It seemed almost as though these parts were in their first draft, whilst the rest of the book had been edited to publication standard. In addition, the writer often assumed previous knowledge of cultures and histories – some which I understood, some which I didn’t. Again, these irritated me somewhat.

Victoria’s Empire is definitely a book worth reading if you want to an enjoyable and informative read but be prepared for the sudden narrative changes and the occasional long-winded passage.

[Kate Parr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this one three out of sentimentality for Victoria Wood, but really its a two: its was weird mix of travelogue and history, but not very good at either. It seems the team went out of their way to interview people who had a good view of the British. Everyone was very 'yay British': apparently we brought law and education everywhere we went. As far as a travelogue goes, they seemed to turn up late everywhere which meant they missed the thing they went there for.
My final moan is that Victoria herself didn't have more of a voice. There are three credited authors: Wood, a travel writer and a historian. Wood herself only writes the intro to each country and the fore/afterwords. They are funny and sweet and very her but then the other writers take over and it's just dull and sounds like my own travel journal writing.
All in, this book will not tell you anything useful about the countries as they are now, and the history is very white.

[Josie · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Audiobook version]

I enjoyed Victoria's amusing little stories about her travels, but they got shorter and shorter with every chapter. The historical sections were... pretty dull... (And listening to this on audio, the narration just switches over without warning, which was a bit disconcerting the first time it happened.)

[Crissy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit disappointed in the book, although I think I enjoyed the TV series. I respect and mostly agreed with her various comments on imperialism whether it was positive or negative. However, I found myself distracted by bad punctuation in a few places and the wrongly stated fact that, Culloden was a battle between the Scottish and the English!

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was ...ok. I listened to this in audiobook form, read by Victoria wood and two others for 'Listening books ' company (not available to buy). I was quite excited at first because Victoria started reading it and she sounded enthusiastic and had a musical voice. It turns out she hardly read any of the book which I thought was a bit mean, just the introduction if that, to each chapter. A lot of the book was about countries prior to when queen Victoria came to reign, when we ruled them and used most of the people living there as slaves and we or the people in charge of this were, frankly, a pompous bunch, thinking we were the best (though this doesn't represent the general population of Britain). Either this, or we were taking the best of their resources such as tea and gold, or sending our prisoners there. I did learn a few things from this book, but some of it didn't feel like it was written by Victoria wood, more that she or someone else grabbed extracts or a chapter from a history textbook. This seemed to be affirmed to me at one point when some old fashioned language was used. It did improve though. I didn't like how she clearly stated she would spend little time, sometimes 48 hours in one country (including sleep) yet so much would be written about it, it would be clear that she quickly visited a couple of places and didn't talk to many of the people or find out first hand about queenvictorias influence. It did get better I think from the middle or nearer to the end, especially new Zealand onwards. maybe this was just because I found the culture and history of these places more interesting but there were more first hand accounts. Victoria also clearly said she couldn't remember which order she visited places in New Zealand and that she would have to consult her diary! This is a book, why couldn't she do that? There was a lot of info about the history of the places but I'm not sure Victoria wood had much influence on the book or made it more interesting. obviously I did not get to see the pictures and I did not see the tv series which I expect and hope was more enjoyable. I remember seeing adverts for it with fantastic photography. I just found it a bit laborious for the most part and extremely little humour. I know some parts it would be insensitive to insert humour, but not all of it. The ending was fairly sudden, like we've now typed up about that country, no summary, the end. from what I remember anyway. I'd had enough! but if you want to learn about the history of some countries and how we thought we were self important and deserved to own the world you may like this book and could always scan read some bits, something not so easy to do on an audiobook.

[Debs Erwin · Rating 1 out of 5]

To be honest I didn't even finish this book. I absolutely hate not finishing things but I simply lost the will to live with this book, I really didn't care about what Victoria thought of her travels. Victoria Wood is a fantastic comedian, I love watching her do stand-up, and she's an excellent comedy writer but this project did not let her shine. Perhaps the TV series was different, I haven't seen it. Part of the problem with the book was the historical sections interspersed throughout the narrative, they were just too dry and ended up being a distraction from Victoria's account of the trip. Unfortunately Victoria's writing left me uninspired about the places she visited, her comments were at times too disparaging and I just felt hot and bothered which I think she felt most of the time. Very disappointing.

[Katie Grainger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't all I expected, for a start I thought the whole thing would have been written by Victoria Wood but it actually turned out it wasn't. This was abit of a disappointment as I am a big fan and was looking forward to her insights given the fact she is unlikely to ever write an autobiography. In fact the only sections of the book she wrote were, the introduction a final word and then an introduction to each chapter. This being said I still liked the book, it was a good mix of history and a good travel diary to compliment the TV series, but it did lack the humor I was expecting!

[Yorky Caz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worst book I have ever read :-( It was like reading a history textbook and a not very good one at that