The Most Interesting Queen Victoria Reading List

With it being Victoria Day weekend in Canada, I decided it couldn’t be a better time to post my new Queen Victoria reading list. (Especially given that a lot of us have a lot more reading time…) Victoria is often seen as a myth and an icon of an entire era, but she was also a monarch and a woman. I have picked my favourite Queen Victoria books to give you insight into the people around Victoria and the woman herself. We are spoilt for choice with her, so it wasn’t an easy choice to make, but I’ve done it. Here is my Queen Victoria reading list, for your enjoyment!

Before Victoria

Understanding the stage of the royal family before Victoria can make a big difference in understanding her life… Princess Charlotte of Wales is key piece of the puzzle of Victoria’s life. 

Charlotte and Leopold: The True Story of the Original People’s Princess, James Chambers

Charlotte was the only legitimate royal child of her generation, and her death in childbirth resulted in a public outpouring of grief the like of which was not to be seen again until the death of Diana, over 150 years later. Charlotte’s death was followed by an unseemly scramble to produce a substitute heir. Queen Victoria was the product.

James Chambers masterfully demonstrates how the personal and the political inevitably collide in scheming post-Napoleonic Europe, offering a vivid and sympathetic portrait of a couple whose lives are in many ways not their own. From the day she was born, Charlotte won the hearts of her subjects and yet, behind the scenes, she was used, abused, and victimized by rivalries—between her parents; between her father (the Prince Regent, later King George IV) and (Mad) King George III; between her tutors, governesses, and other members of her discordant household; and ultimately between the Whig opposition and the Tory government.

Set in one of the most glamorous eras of British history, against the background of a famously dysfunctional royal family, Charlotte & Leopold: The True Story of The Original People’s Princess is an accessible, moving, funny, and entertaining royal biography with alluring contemporary resonance.

Sadly, Princess Charlotte of Wales is largely forgotten in royal history. The only child of the Prince Regent and Future George IV, she carried the future of the British monarchy on her shoulders. However, it is Charlotte’s trajectory that led to Victoria taking the throne. Charlotte died in childbirth, meaning that two generations of heirs were lost in a day. And after her death, her uncles began a race to find to get married and father the next heir. Obviously, the Duke of Kent won that race… Charlotte led a fascinating, albeit somewhat sad, life and deserves much more attention.

This biography looks at both Charlotte and her husband Leopold. Leopold was Victoria’s uncle, and Chambers does a wonderful job of introducing the man who continues to appear in Victoria’s story. However, this book’s strength is Charlotte- the majority focuses on her. Charlotte’s father, the Prince Regent, was a difficult and particular man. He hated Charlotte’s mother, and the strained relationship between her parents absolutely trickles down to Charlotte. Despite an often-isolated childhood (much like Victoria), Charlotte blossomed in adulthood. Chambers covers Charlotte’s short life, without a constant sense of foreboding that often accompanies biographies where death features heavily. This isn’t a long biography, but is a wonderful introduction to Charlotte and Leopold. 

You will want to read this before any Victoria biographies, to give you a solid context for the later Georgians. Victoria’s life will make more sense when you have Charlotte’s background to explain why everyone around Victoria acted like they did. 

Victoria Herself

And now for Victoria herself. There is really no shortage of Queen Victoria biographies, but these four are my favourites. They all take different approaches, but have their own strengths. 

The Young Victoria, Deirdre Murphy 

This beautiful, extensively researched volume investigates the birth and early life of one of the most familiar British monarchs, Queen Victoria (1819–1901). A wealth of material, including many unexamined sources and unpublished images, sheds new light on Victoria’s youth. Included here are portraits of the queen as princess, childhood diaries and sketchbooks, clothing, jewelery, and correspondence.  

 Deirdre Murphy paints a vivid picture of Victoria’s early years. Among her most surprising conclusions is the idea that the queen’s personal mythology of a childhood characterized by sadness and isolation is less accurate than is generally thought. Victoria’s personal relationships are brought brilliantly to life, from her affectionate but increasingly suffocating bond with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, to the controlling influence of Sir John Conroy, a man she came to despise, and her courtship with Prince Albert. Lesser-known figures are also explored, including Victoria’s first schoolmaster the Reverend George Davys, her governess Louise Lehzen, and her half-sister Feodora. This fascinating cast of characters enhances our image of Victoria, who emerges as both willful and submissive, fickle and affectionate, and with the explosive temper of her Hanoverian ancestors.

This is one of my favourite Victoria books, and I’m only halfway through. There have been countless books written on Queen Victoria’s adulthood. Her marriage, her widowhood, her royal matchmaking. However, we rarely get to read or hear about her childhood and adolescence past “the Kensington system”.  The Young Victoria gives us a window into her formative years, and pulls back the curtain with different pieces that have never been shown before. 

Murphy was a senior curator with Historic Royal Palaces, and being based out of Kensington Palace, she had access to sources that most of us dream about. Clothing, childhood toys, Victoria’s own sketches- all included here! (Many of the sources included here are held by the Royal Collection Trust.) And not only does she include these sources, she also delves into people in Victoria’s life that we usually don’t see. Given that Victoria’s adulthood is largely marked by attachments to various people, I am appreciating the earlier context. Sure, we all are familiar with Prince Albert, but have you heard of Reverend George Bathys? 

I would read this before any full-length biographies of Victoria. The interesting sources and specific focus on her earlier years are going to make it easier to understand and draw connections across her life as a whole. 

Victoria the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire, Julia Baird

When Victoria was born, in 1819, the world was a very different place. Revolution would threaten many of Europe’s monarchies in the coming decades. In Britain, a generation of royals had indulged their whims at the public’s expense, and republican sentiment was growing. The Industrial Revolution was transforming the landscape, and the British Empire was commanding ever larger tracts of the globe. In a world where women were often powerless, during a century roiling with change, Victoria went on to rule the most powerful country on earth with a decisive hand. Fifth in line to the throne at the time of her birth, Victoria was an ordinary woman thrust into an extraordinary role. As a girl, she defied her mother’s meddling and an adviser’s bullying, forging an iron will of her own. As a teenage queen, she eagerly grasped the crown and relished the freedom it brought her. At twenty, she fell passionately in love with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, eventually giving birth to nine children. She loved sex and delighted in power. She was outspoken with her ministers, overstepping conventional boundaries and asserting her opinions. After the death of her adored Albert, she began a controversial, intimate relationship with her servant John Brown. She survived eight assassination attempts over the course of her lifetime. And as science, technology, and democracy were dramatically reshaping the world, Victoria was a symbol of steadfastness and security–queen of a quarter of the world’s population at the height of the British Empire’s reach. Drawing on sources that include fresh revelations about Victoria’s relationship with John Brown, Julia Baird brings vividly to life the fascinating story of a woman who struggled with so many of the things we do today: balancing work and family, raising children, navigating marital strife, losing parents, combating anxiety and self-doubt, finding an identity, searching for meaning.

I admit, I put off reading this because I was slightly unsure of the size. At 750+ pages, it can be a tad overwhelming. However, it reads like a novel and moves quickly! Baird covers Julia’s life from beginning to end, no easy feat for a woman who reigned for over 60 years. She doesn’t fall into the trap of romanticising or demonising Victoria, and takes a balanced approach. She also works hard to keep the reader informed of what was happening in politics and society at the time, which is important in the era where the government was still fighting for power. 

Baird is not an historian, but rather a journalist, and I think that is a strength here. She isn’t bogged down in day-to-day minutiae, a dangerous possibility with the Victorian period. When needed, Baird gives details, but she doesn’t waste your time.  I watched a talk that she gave where she discussed not having much access to the Royal Collection (due to being a journalist), so this book is even more impressive for the fact that she had limited access to her sources.

If you know nothing of Victoria at all, this is the book for you! (And now that I’ve read it, I don’t think a Queen Victoria reading list is complete without it.)

Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow, Lucy Worsley

Who was Queen Victoria? A little old lady, potato-like in appearance, dressed in everlasting black? Or a passionate young princess, a romantic heroine with a love of dancing? There is also a third Victoria – a woman who was also a remarkably successful queen, one who invented a new role for the monarchy. She found a way of being a respected sovereign in an age when people were deeply uncomfortable with having a woman on the throne.

As well as a queen, Victoria was a daughter, a wife, a mother and a widow, and at each of these steps along life’s journey she was expected to conform to what society demanded of a woman. On the face of it, she was deeply conservative. But if you look at her actions rather than her words, she was in fact tearing up the rule book for how to be female.

By looking at the detail of twenty-four days of her life, through diaries, letters and more, we can see Victoria up close and personal. Examining her face-to-face, as she lived hour to hour, allows us to see, and to celebrate, the contradictions at the heart of British history’s most recognisable woman.

Another Historic Royal Palaces curator! I have recommended this book on the blog before, but I had to include it here. Victoria’s life can be overwhelming, and I think that deters a lot of people from reading about her. However, Worsley’s approach of selecting key dates/episodes throughout her life to highlight different people and themes is a creative way to cover a lot of ground. She looks at 24 different episodes, and through these, we can see the evolution of a Queen and a woman. Worsley does include quotes from Victoria’s own letters and diaries, which lends a needed weight to the book. (Although her daughter, Beatrice, unfortunately cut out much of her diaries after her death…) 

It is a lighter biography of Victoria, but I think that Worsley does an excellent job of poking us to rethink her and highlighting those contrasts. Victoria wouldn’t have considered herself a feminist but she was the head of the largest Empire to ever have existed. And the idea that she was a perpetual widow who was permanently dour and angry? Doubtful, given all of the surviving sources we have. Given that there have been so many books written about Victoria, this opposition is a new approach!

If you are new or somewhat new to Victoria and her life, this book will give you a needed introduction but also challenge you to reconsider what you do know.

Those After Victoria

I think that the people around Victoria can give you just as much insight into her life as she can, and her children are no exception!

The Mystery of Princess Louise: Queen Victoria’s Rebellious Daughter, Lucinda Hawksley

The secrets of Queen Victoria’s sixth child, Princess Louise, may be destined to remain hidden forever. What was so dangerous about this artistic, tempestuous royal that her life has been documented more by rumour and gossip than hard facts? When Lucinda Hawksley started to investigate, often thwarted by inexplicable secrecy, she discovered a fascinating woman, modern before her time, whose story has been shielded for years from public view.

Louise was a sculptor and painter, friend to the Pre-Raphaelites and a keen member of the Aesthetic movement. The most feisty of the Victorian princesses, she kicked against her mother’s controlling nature and remained fiercely loyal to her brothers – especially the sickly Leopold and the much-maligned Bertie. She sought out other unconventional women, including Josephine Butler and George Eliot, and campaigned for education and health reform and for the rights of women. She battled with her indomitable mother for permission to practice the ‘masculine’ art of sculpture and go to art college and in doing so became the first British princess to attend a public school.

The rumours of Louise’s colourful love life persist even today, with hints of love affairs dating as far back as her teenage years, and notable scandals included entanglements with her sculpting tutor Joseph Edgar Boehm and possibly even her sister Princess Beatrice’s handsome husband, Liko. True to rebellious form, she refused all royal suitors and became the first member of the royal family to marry a commoner since the sixteenth century.

Spirited and lively, The Mystery of Princess Louise is richly packed with arguments, intrigues, scandals and secrets, and is a vivid portrait of a princess desperate to escape her inheritance

I had to include this book- Princess Louise is one of my favourite royals in history. All nine of Victoria and Albert’s children were unique, strong personalities in their own ways. But Louise was absolutely leading the pack in independence. I personally think that it was Louise’s path that cleared the way for Princess Margaret to seek out her artistic circle, and for royal siblings in the later twentieth centuries to forge their own path. And with Louise’s sculpture of Queen Victoria sitting outside Kensington Palace to this day, I can only imagine that she has inspired many royals to take up artistic pursuits, be it painting, photography, or other. (And spending several years in Canada when her husband was Governor General, she left her mark all over my home country also!) 

I would argue that each of Victoria’s children rebelled in their own ways, but Louise’s path is constant rebellion, and it makes for a fantastic read. It isn’t overly long, with shorter chapters- it doesn’t labour the point. I don’t necessarily agree with every single one of Hawksley’s conclusions, but she brings in enough evidence for you to draw your own. (No, I don’t believe that Princess Louise had a child out of wedlock- I don’t think it would have stayed this quiet.)

If you want to see the effect that Victoria had on her children, and get lost in a fascinating life, The Mystery of Princess Louise should be your next book! 

The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince, Jane Ridley

“This is not only the best biography of King Edward VII; it’s also one of the best books about royalty ever published.” So began the London Independent’s review of this wonderfully entertaining biography of Britain’s playboy king-a Prince Charles of the Victorian age, only a lot more fun-who waited for nearly six decades to get his chance to rule. A notorious gambler, glutton and womanizer (he was dubbed “Edward the Caresser”), the world was his oyster as this aging Prince of Wales took advantage of his royal entitlements to travel, hunt, socialize, over-indulge-he smoked a dozen cigars a day-and bed a string of mistresses and married women in addition to his own wife. His mother Queen Victoria despaired: “Bertie, I grieve to say, shows more and more how totally, totally unfit he is for ever becoming king.” And yet by the time he died in 1910, after only nine years on the throne, he had proven to be a hard working, effective king and an ace diplomat, at home and abroad. 

What would a Queen Victoria reading list be without a look at her heir, the often-dismissed Edward VII? Because Victoria lived until 1901, Edward’s own reign was less than a decade. However, the Edwardian period is still its own distinct era, and there are reasons for that. Not a quiet or reserved man, Edward and his social set were larger than life in every single way possible. When he finally did take the throne, that only spread further. I do see a few similarities between Victoria and Edward, but it is quite the exercise to compare such different monarchs and people. The relationship between monarch and heir is a complex one, and Victoria and her son were no different. 

Edward had quite a difficult childhood. Prince Albert had very specific theories on raising children, and it appears that if something was good for Bertie (Edward’s family name), Albert put a stop to it. Still, he very much became his own person, and an interesting one at that. While I wouldn’t want to have personally lived his life of carousing and debauchery, it is quite entertaining to read about it! (It also clearly explains the Edwardian period…) Ridley takes quite a sarcastic tone to Bertie’s life, and it works perfectly for him. Authors, take note!

If you are a fan of Downton Abbey or the Edwardian period in general, or are just curious what having parents like Victoria and Albert would do to you, The Heir Apparent is for you!

What books would you put on your Queen Victoria reading list? 

Cheers,
The Historian
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