Victoria and Albert - Softcover

HOUGH,Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860660339 ISBN 13: 9781860660337

Publisher: Richard Cohen Books, 1996

Synopsis

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About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

A delightful and engaging joint biography of Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, from prolific popular historian and British royals watcher Hough (Born Royal: The Lives and Loves of the Young Windsors, 1988, etc.). When the 20-year-old Queen Victoria married Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840, the United Kingdom was the richest and most powerful country in the world. Hough draws chiefly on Victoria's letters and extant journals to give us the story of these young people until Albert's premature death from typhoid in 1861. We read of Victoria's secluded upbringing and limited education, designed to shield her from the decadence and unpopularity of her predecessors on the throne, and of Albert's sense of moral duty and public service, in contrast with his own equally dissolute family. Despite occasional rows and misunderstandings, Victoria was totally devoted to her consort. Albert, at first unpopular in his adopted nation, provided invaluable emotional support to a frequently nervous and insecure Victoria. His greatest triumphs were probably his role in keeping Britain from entering the American Civil War on the side of the South and his promotion of the Great Exhibition, held in London in 1851 to celebrate the Industrial Revolution and promote peace in Europe. The couple had nine children (against popular sentiment, Victoria used chloroform to ease the pains of childbirth), and the queen later blamed their eldest son and heir, the future Edward VII, for his father's death, which followed the shocking news of Edward's first of many sexual misadventures. Hough avoids cheap sensationalism, but his narrative is at times maddeningly matter- of-fact: He offers few interpretive insights and gives the reader no explanations of Victoria's constitutional position and political views (e.g., why her refusal to dismiss certain ladies on her staff resulted in the collapse of the Tory government in 1839). Nonetheless, a fitting corrective to Victoria's often misunderstood popular image. (8 pages illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

A challenge for readers of Hough's brief life of the royal couple will be to fathom the meaning of the subtitle. "Love" is obvious enough: their arranged marriage to ensure an orderly succession quickly became a passionate one. The tragedies they shared, however, boil down to one?Albert's death at 42, which left Victoria, with half her life still to live, a widow. Having accomplished biographies of eminent partners before (Edward and Alexandra; Winston and Clementine), Hough is practiced at the form and slides easily into his abbreviated narrative, largely told from Victoria's perspective. Nevertheless, his tale is the oft-told one, with few pages unfamiliar to those acquainted with earlier biographies. Nine children are born; two royal dwellings outside London are built (Osburne and Balmoral); a world's fair is arranged successfully at the striking new "Crystal Palace" in Hyde Park; a title?Prince Consort?is granted to Albert by his wife; they survive marital spats, often over the education of the dullard heir to the throne; in 1861, Albert dies. It's all competently told, but there's little new here. Illustrations.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Richard Cohen Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 1860660339
• ISBN 13: 9781860660337
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248