Victoria and Albert
1991
[From Amazon]
In 1837, an eighteen-year-old girl ascended the throne of Great Britain, and within three years Victoria had established herself and the Crown as a major power in politics. Much has been written of her marriage to Albert, but little has been included of the struggle between husband and wife. Evelyn Anthony now recreates the Victorian past to tell the story of that love, and how Victoria eventually came to love her husband better than herself or her own power.
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[From jacket]
"The King is dead, God save the Queen."
When Victoria heard these words, she was a tiny, blue-eyed, fair-haired girl, scarcely eighteen and bearing little resemblance to the formidable Widow of Windsor she later became. But this is a novel, about Victoria the wife, not the widow, beginning with youth and marriage and ending, as a vital part of Victoria's life ended, with the death of Albert, the only person she ever loved.
Evelyn Anthony's portrait of the Queen and her consort is touching and moving. Victoria's intense nature prevented halfway measures, and her passion for Albert increased rather than diminished in their twenty-one years of marriage. She loved so blindly that she never once realized that he did not in turn love her. But they were nevertheless very close; and there is a fascinating intimacy in this skillful reconstruction of their daily life, their conversations, their houses and furniture and clothing, their trips abroad, their relations with their nine children - particularly the Prince of Wales. The indomitable Queen is here, as well as the loving wife; and Albert, far from being merely a shadowy figure in the background, attains real dimension as a man, not just as Victoria's husband.
As readers of Anne Boleyn and other books by Miss Anthony will recall, she is greatly adept at conveying the atmosphere of a Court and the personages surrounding it. Melbourne and Palmerston and Peel and other great figures play their part in the story, as do the stirring and troublous historic events of he first two decades of Victoria's reign.
There have been many books about Victoria, ranging from the satirical to the dull. Victoria and Albert has the distinction of presenting her as a vulnerable human being.
