Queen Victoria

First published in 1964, this biography follows Victoria from a constrained childhood under the Kensington System through her accession in 1837, her marriage to Prince Albert, the raising of nine children, and the long widowhood after 1861. Longford uses letters and diaries to show the queen's working relations with Melbourne, Peel, Palmerston, Disraeli, and Gladstone, and her role in a court that became the centre of a spreading family of European dynasties. Domestic routine at Windsor, Osborne, and Balmoral sits beside public crisis. The book is a full life of the sovereign, not a general history of the nineteenth century.

Bound in black buckram with gilt medallion on upper board. Purple endleaves. Dark purple slipcase.