Is there anything left to say about Queen Victoria? A.N. Wilson has found plenty

A review of Victoria: A Life, by A.N. Wilson. A superb new revisionist biography argues that it was only after her husband’s death that Queen Victoria found her true self

From magazine issue: 06 September 2014

Scenes from a long life. Left to right: the vulnerable young queen, in thrall to Prince Albert; overcoming her demons with the help of John Brown — depicted in a popular souvenir cut-out; and the matriarch as Empress of India [Getty Images/iStock/Bridgeman]

issue 06 September 2014

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Jane Ridley

Is there anything left to say about Queen Victoria? A.N. Wilson has found plenty
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Do we really need a thumping new life of Queen Victoria? She seems to be one of our most familiar figures, the subject of countless books; but the surprising fact is that there hasn’t been a full, authoritative study since Elizabeth Longford’s life of 1974. A.N. Wilson has spent many years thinking and reading about Queen Victoria, and this superb revisionist biography is the book that he was born to write.

In Wilson’s view there are two Victorias. The young Victoria was always someone’s pawn, trying to be a person that she wasn’t. She was in thrall first to Lord Melbourne and then to Baron Stockmar and Prince Albert. Only after Albert’s death was she able to become her true, strong-minded self.

Most writers have been drawn to the drama of Victoria’s youth and her love affair with Albert. This is the period of the queen’s life which Wilson finds least interesting.