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A review by khornstein1
Becoming Queen Victoria: The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte and the Unexpected Rise of Britain's Greatest Monarch by Kate Williams
5.0
If I were to become a writer of historical biography, this is the biography I would love to have written. Kate Williams is entertaining, but not at the expense of accuracy, opinionated--maybe--but not in a droning, boring way.
I am going to skip over the first part of the book, which is mainly about Princess Charlotte, who died following a difficult pregnancy and stillbirth--although I found the first part of the book's cast of characters, many of whom I'd never really thought about before--George IV--for example, to be fascinating.
A couple of interesting notes: At first, Victoria found Albert boring! She was in many ways looking for the anti-alpha man and she found it in Albert. He wasn't a "career guy." He was the ultimate SAH dad and helper. He was happy to take a back seat in the vehicle of Victoria's reign--in fact the book says that "Albert's role would be that of a wife," only occasionally offering advice and reading from Victoria's letterbox to her when she was fatigued from one of her numerous pregnancies.
Also interesting: Victoria's reign began with the terrible effects of the Poor Law--those things that Dickens wrote about: the workhouses, crime, squalor and disease as industrialization brought "benefits to some, but misery to thousands." On a carriage trip across England as a teenager, her family sheltered her from seeing the many poor who were literally starving in England's countryside. But by the end of her reign--England ruled the world, economically and militarily. While Albert painted watercolors and her children were given over to governesses, Victoria became Empress of India and ruler of--probably half the world. In many ways, she was the Margaret Thatcher of her day, even though she had less policy to influence.
Another note: I could only read about 10 minutes of this each night before falling asleep. Once I start thinking about the British Monarchy's family tree branching off in a million different directions (fortunately Williams supplies the tree at the beginning of the book) my brain goes to another place, entirely removed from 21st century life.
I am going to skip over the first part of the book, which is mainly about Princess Charlotte, who died following a difficult pregnancy and stillbirth--although I found the first part of the book's cast of characters, many of whom I'd never really thought about before--George IV--for example, to be fascinating.
A couple of interesting notes: At first, Victoria found Albert boring! She was in many ways looking for the anti-alpha man and she found it in Albert. He wasn't a "career guy." He was the ultimate SAH dad and helper. He was happy to take a back seat in the vehicle of Victoria's reign--in fact the book says that "Albert's role would be that of a wife," only occasionally offering advice and reading from Victoria's letterbox to her when she was fatigued from one of her numerous pregnancies.
Also interesting: Victoria's reign began with the terrible effects of the Poor Law--those things that Dickens wrote about: the workhouses, crime, squalor and disease as industrialization brought "benefits to some, but misery to thousands." On a carriage trip across England as a teenager, her family sheltered her from seeing the many poor who were literally starving in England's countryside. But by the end of her reign--England ruled the world, economically and militarily. While Albert painted watercolors and her children were given over to governesses, Victoria became Empress of India and ruler of--probably half the world. In many ways, she was the Margaret Thatcher of her day, even though she had less policy to influence.
Another note: I could only read about 10 minutes of this each night before falling asleep. Once I start thinking about the British Monarchy's family tree branching off in a million different directions (fortunately Williams supplies the tree at the beginning of the book) my brain goes to another place, entirely removed from 21st century life.