Customer Reviews
Victoria, warts and all - By: Anonymous, 17 Jun 2003 
After reading some glittering medieval & Tudor biographies, I wanted to fillin the gaps closer to our own day. Christopher Hibbert's comprehensive, readable biography is a good starting-point. However, as detractors have pointed out, it is short on political analysis. The emphasis is on "royal".
Hibbert sets the stage for Victoria's accession with a marvellous summary of how her various royal forebears failed to provide an heir, so that she succeeded by default. He delineates Queen Victoria's complex relationships with several Prime Ministers: her neediness with Lord Melbourne & Disraeli, antipathy towards Palmerston & Gladstone, respect for Salisbury. Unfortunately he does not clearly enough differentiate between Whigs & Tories. But he does acquaint the reader with the major political personalities & put youin a position to explore further. A useful reference alongside this book is "The Prime Ministers from Walpole to Macmillan" (possibly only availablein the UK, &in danger of going out of print).
Skilfully interweaving Victoria's personal history with national & international landmark events, Hibbert provides handy, if underwritten, overviews of the Indian Mutiny, the Crimean War, the Great Exhibition, & Chartism. He also sketches contemporary European royals like Napoleon III, exploring tensions between France, Italy & Austria.
Co-dependency, egotism & self-pity characterised Victoria's personal contacts. Her henpecking of her intelligent, unpopular consort Albert, & later selfish blocking of her children's marriagesin order to keep them around, echo her own repressive childhood. But Victoria's households at Balmoral & Osborne were beacons of domesticity, & she was well-travelled & sophisticated.
She hated pregnancy, resented her children, & was scathingly dismissive of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII). After Prince Albert's untimely death, she avoided official engagements for years, to the consternation of her government & people. She fostered obsessional bonds with her Scottish & Indian servants.
Her prolific writings reveal a needy, infantile & self-obsessed woman. Her USE of CAPITALSin an age before the telephone, is a way of SHOUTING (not unlike the internet), & italics give her prose stridency.
So what were Queen Victoria's merits, if any? By dint of longevity she was the epoxy glue of the Age which took her name, & her progeny peopled the Royal houses of Europe. Surviving several assasination attempts, Victoria held her family & householdin thrall, & the countryin awe. Somehow she inspired the loyalty, if also exasperation, of her Governments.
Henry VIII or Elizabeth I she ain't, but the story is worth reading. Christopher Hibbert gives an urbane, accessible account, with mercifully short chapters.
Victoria, warts and all - By: Anonymous, 29 May 2003 
After reading some glittering medieval & Tudor biographies, I wanted to fillin the gaps closer to our own day. Christopher Hibbert's comprehensive, readable biography is a good starting-point.
He sets the stage for Victoria's accession with a marvellous summary of how her various royal forebears failed to provide an heir, so that she succeeded by default.
Hibbert delineates Queen Victoria's complex relationships with several Prime Ministers: her neediness with Lord Melbourne & Disraeli, antipathy towards Palmerston & Gladstone, respect for Salisbury. Unfortunately he does not clearly enough differentiate between Whigs & Tories. But he does acquaint the reader with the major political personalities & put youin a position to explore further. A useful reference alongside this book is "The Prime Ministers from Walpole to Macmillan" (possibly only availablein the UK, &in danger of going out of print).
Hibbert skilfully interweaves Victoria's personal history with national & international landmark events. He provides excellent overviews of the Indian Mutiny, the Crimean War, the Great Exhibition, & Chartism. He also sketches contemporary European royals like Napoleon III, exploring tensions between France, Italy & Austria.
Co-dependency, egotism & self-pity charactertised Victoria's personal contacts. Her henpecking of her intelligent, unpopular consort Albert, & later selfish blocking of her children's marriagesin order to keep them around, echo her repressive childhood. But Victoria's households at Balmoral & Osborne were beacons of domesticity, & she was well-travelled & sophisticated.
Her own writings reveal an infantile & self-obsessed woman. Her USE of CAPITALSin an age before the telephone, is a way of SHOUTING (not unlike the internet), & italics give her prose stridency. Victoria utterly failed to take into account other people's feelings, viewing Prince Albert & John Brown through the prism of her own needs. She was scathingly dismissive of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII). After Prince Albert's death, she whiningly avoided official engagements for years. She fostered obsessional bonds with her Scottish & Indian servants.
So what were Queen Victoria's merits, if any? By dint of longevity she was the epoxy glue of the Age which took her name, & her progeny peopled the Royal houses of Europe. Surviving several assasination attempts, Victoria held her family & householdin thrall, & the countryin awe. Somehow she inspired the loyalty, if also exasperation, of her Governments.
Henry VIII or Elizabeth I she ain't, but the story is worth reading. Christopher Hibbert gives an urbane, accessible account, with mercifully short chapters.
Hibbert notches up another admirable achievement - By: , 18 Mar 2002 Christopher Hibbert, now aged 77, has 34 books to his credit. This staggering total presumably includes one or two lemons, but this reviewer has yet to find any. Hibbert's latest volume belongs with his very best, & defies anyone to read a single chapter without immediately gobbling up the next half-dozen.
It might be thought that Queen Victoria's two finest pre-Hibbert biographers, Elizabeth Longford & Stanley Weintraub, had between them exhausted their theme. Hibbert, though, draws on Royal Archives material which no previous book-length study has used. While the result compels no spectacular revisions of accepted verdicts, it periodically shines instructive new beams of light.
How did Victoria survive? Partly through luck: she died just before Hearst- or Pulitzer-style gutter-journalism had emerged with the aim of routing all political authority save its own. Partly through the sheer strength of monarchism's position throughout Europein the half-century before World War I: a period when only Switzerland, Portugal (after 1910), Spain (1873-75) & Third Republic France (itself crypto-monarchist) formally eschewed kingship. But partly through that most elusive of personal attributes: a charm that could, when she chose, thaw the frostiest critics. It thawed them posthumously as well: above allin the case of Lytton Strachey, who began his account of her life with every intention of dancing the Charleston on her grave, but whose reflexive sniggers she eventually silenced. It has clearly won over Hibbert too.
delightful, delectable and easily digestible - By: david.green@email.labour.org.uk, 22 Jan 2002 Christoper Hibbert once again shows himself to be one of the best popular historian writing today. In this personal portrait - for that is what it is, there are no complex political analyses here - he truthfully & intimately depicts one of the most significant world leaders of the post industrial world. By showing Victoria through the eyes of her family, household & ministers, Hibbert manages to deal impartially with the many "grey areas" of Victoria's life - the "John Brown" rumours, for example, are dealt within a very informative & unbiased manner. Hibbert's method of using short, succinct chapters of no more than about 15 pages makes this an good book to readin bits to get a general feel for the issues & themes of Victoria's life & reign. A right good read!
Engagingly personal - By: Dr. Matt Jones, 09 Jul 2001 This is a heavy book with lots of pages. The kind of book you look at & think, "I'll never get through this, but it might impress the friends".
However, it is so well written you find yourself moving quickly through the life of Victoria, Queen & Empress.
"Personal Biography" seems a strange title (surely all 'biography' is about a person) but it is very aptin this case. There are lots of books about Victoria which present herin a remote, almost institutionalised way. This book though gives us an intriguing look at her tempremant, joys, fears. The last chapter on her death & fraility is very moving.
The book does though too give a useful feel for the times both political & social that Victoria livedin (and shaped).
