Victoria

House, the Lords, some hundred or so rich men who owned most of the land, and exercised most of the power, in Britain.

There had, as yet, been no French-style Revolution to overthrow these arrangements. And it was to be the care and concern of the British Governing classes to make sure that no such revolution occurred. The previous old King, William IV, having had a dissolute life, and fathered ten children out of wedlock, died legitimately married and reconciled to God, murmuring the words, The Church, the Church .

The twin institutions, of the Church of England, and the Monarchy, clearly played a vital role in the delicate balance of the British Constitution. The Victorians liked to tell one another that the monarch was simply a figurehead, kept in place by the Whig landowners, a figure who signed state papers and gave the nod to the deliberations of the House of Lords. This was not really the case. The monarch still occupied a position of real power in Britain, and if that power were to be exercised recklessly, or if the monarchy were hated by a hungry populace, there was no knowing what anarchy would ensue. The monarch depended upon the peerage; the peerage depended upon economic prosperity, and upon the rising commercial classes who could provide it; the shared powers of Trade, Land, the Law and the Church were all delicately, and not always obviously, interwoven in the destinies of that young woman glimpsed in the park by the historian. It was essential for her future that the other institutions should continue to support her; it was essential for all of them, that she should maintain the status quo, that she should not fail. 
 

Victoria s grandfather, King George III, a monarch who was politically active, and who had played a pivotal role in the shaping of British political history, was blind for the last ten years of his life, and at sporadic intervals in the last twenty

single word: 'Awe'. His own achievement, sustained by a lifetime s scholarly fascination with the Victorian era, is also, in its way, awesome.

Minneapolis Star Tribune: 
Stately [Wilson is] a superb biographer [It is his] great achievement is that he has liberated Victoria from the protective raiment of her family and the British establishment.

Kirkus Reviews (starred):
A shimmering portrait of a tempestuous monarch [Wilson] lends a lively expertise to his portrayal of the forthright, formidable, still-enigmatic sovereign During her long reign, Victoria had come to embody the experience of an entire age, overseeing great reform and the strengthening of ties between India and the British Empire. A robust, immensely entertaining portrait from a master biographer.

Booklist (starred):
Few if any previous biographers have viewed [Queen Victoria] as incisively and absorbingly as Wilson does in his lengthy but smoothly flowing treatment of the queen s long life. The considerable detail he brings to his greatly balanced portrait not only strengthens his estimation of the significance of the queen in British governmental history but also successfully conveys for the general reader all the nuances of character that Wilson so carefully shares.

Library Journal (starred):
[A] comprehensive, highly accessible work rooted in the complex political and international details of the era Wilson is most successful in identifying and highlighting the monarch s paradoxes: the contrasts between the little woman in a bonnet and the queen who proudly controlled the British empire. Highly recommended for readers fascinated by the lives of notable individuals and British royalty.

Publishers Weekly:
More than a Victoria biography, Wilson skillfully weaves the vast narrative of the Victorian landscape.

The Guardian (UK):
Subtle, thoughtful Wilson picks up the pieces and puts the jigsaw back together again, creating in the process a Victoria for our own times [A] shimmering and rather wonderful biography.

The Spectator (UK):
Superb The book that [Wilson] was born to write Wilson clearly loves and admires his subject, but this is a critical biography funny, insightful, original, and authoritative. At last Victoria has been rescued from her widow s weeds.

The Sunday Times (UK):
A.N. Wilson brings his novelist s perception and immense knowledge of the era to his effervescent biography of the tiny woman (4ft 11in) who ruled Britain for 61 years...This won t be the last biography of Victoria but it is certainly the most interesting and original in a long time.

The Times (UK):
"A.N. Wilson has written a sympathetic but by no means hagiographic biography of her that will probably overturn many people s prejudiced conception of her... Wilson s picture of her is a rounded one, with her vices and virtues."

The Evening Standard (UK):
[A] splendid biography this book is a gem: thoughtful, witty, insightful, striking a balance between political commentary and personal gossip ... As this terrific biography shows, there really was a human being behind the gloomy portraits.

The Daily Telegraph (UK):
As Hamlet is to actors, Victoria is to writers. The Queen Empress is the ultimate biographical challenge, a role to be taken on only at the apex of a literary career. Ninety-five years ago, the standard was set by Lytton Strachey s lucid and moving Queen Victoria, but A. N. Wilson has now raised the bar What a pity [Victoria] never met A. N. Wilson: she shines in his company [An] expansive and victorious book.