AN Wilson’s sturdy but elegant account of the life of Queen Victoria celebrates the richness of her inner world. Even in the years of stillness, some would say idleness, after her beloved Albert’s death she lived vividly, as her copious journals and letters attest. It is these through which Wilson has combed, those which weren’t burnt by her offspring that is, getting to know her as intimately as one can. The woman that emerges is, in his eyes, one whose capacity for playfulness and humour was almost equal to her abruptness and coldness when displeased.
Wilson attempts to untangle the complicated relationships she had with her various favourites – including the steadfast John Brown and, later, Abdul Karim, her Munshi, on whom she doted and who would teach her Hindustani – as well as her often antagonistic relationships with her children, particularly wilful Bertie, while asserting that there were times when she was quite “out of her mind” with grief, her usually fluid writing reduced to a barely legible scrawl. Wilson’s style is accessible and witty, and while the book isn’t likely to reshape your thinking about Victoria, it does conjure something of her spirit, her energy, the girlishness that was evident even in the ageing queen.
