Victoria

Victoria became queen of the United Kingdom in 1837 and reigned until 1901. Her reign coincided with industrialisation, imperial expansion, political reform and the gradual development of a more recognisably constitutional monarchy. Her marriage to Prince Albert strongly shaped court life, and her prolonged mourning after his death influenced both her public image and the culture associated with the Victorian era.

Victoria is the protagonist of Daisy Goodwin’s novel Victoria, which focuses on her accession, early court and relationship with Albert. She also appears in a wide range of historical novels set across the nineteenth century, often as a distant symbol of monarchy, empire and social respectability.

In George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman at the Charge, Flashman tries to avoid the Crimean War but is assigned to mentor a young German relative of Queen Victoria. In David Field’s The Jubilee Plot, Queen Victoria has ordered a Diamond Jubilee to celebrate her record-breaking sixty years on the throne. Other novels featuring Victoria include Griff Hosker’s Soldier of the Queen, George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman in the Great Game, George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman and the Tiger, Amitav Ghosh’s Flood of Fire, and Griff Hosker’s An Officer and a Gentleman.

In non-fiction, Victoria is discussed in Tracy Borman’s Crown & Sceptre and Gareth Russell’s The Palace. Tracy Borman’s Crown & Sceptre approaches the subject through political ambition and government, empire, conquest and resistance, and family, marriage and personal loyalty.