Queen Victoria: A Life of Contradictions. Matthew Dennison

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Название Queen Victoria: A Life of Contradictions
Автор произведения Matthew Dennison
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Серия
Издательство Биографии и Мемуары
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007504565



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       For Gráinne and Aeneas, with all love

      ‘I could tell you my adventures – beginning from this morning,’ said Alice a little timidly: ‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’

      Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865

      ‘Elizabeth [I] was a great Queen but a bad woman; and even in her royal capacity she erred sometimes; she had a very great idea of her prerogative and was more arbitrary even than her tyrannical father.’

      Princess Victoria, c.1834

      CONTENTS

       TITLE PAGE

       DEDICATION

       EPIGRAPH

       QUEEN VICTORIA’S FAMILY TREE: A SIMPLIFIED VERSION

       LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

       INTRODUCTION

       CHAPTER 1: ‘Pocket Hercules’

       CHAPTER 2: ‘Fresh and innocent as the flowers in her own garden’

       CHAPTER 3: ‘Constant amusements, flattery, excitements and mere politics’

       CHAPTER 4: ‘Every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy’

       CHAPTER 5: ‘The cares of Royalty pressed comparatively lightly’

       CHAPTER 6: ‘The pain of parting’

       CHAPTER 7: ‘Unavailing regrets’

       CHAPTER 8: ‘A Highland Widow’

       CHAPTER 9: ‘Wisest counsellors’

       CHAPTER 10: ‘Mother of many nations’

       CHAPTER 11: ‘All that magnificence’

       PICTURE SECTION

       NOTES

       BIBLIOGRAPHY

       INDEX

       ALSO BY MATTHEW DENNISON

       COPYRIGHT

       ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

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      LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

      1. Victoria, Duchess of Kent with Princess Victoria by Sir William Beechey, 1821 (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      2. Victoria Regina by Henry Tanworth Wells, 1887 (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      3. Queen Victoria by Sir Francis Grant, 1843 (The Crown Estate / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      4. Queen Victoria by Alfred Edward Chalon, 1838 (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      5. Lord Melbourne with Queen Victoria’s dog, Islay, by Queen Victoria (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      6. Prince Albert by Emil Wolff, 1844 (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      7. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Bal Costumé of 12 May 1842 by Sir Edwin Landseer, 1842–6 (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      8. To the Queen’s Private Apartments, English School, 19th century (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      9. Queen Victoria with her Four Eldest Children by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1845 (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      10. Badge of the Order of Victoria and Albert by Tommaso Saulini, c.1863 (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      11. Queen Victoria, Alice and Louise with portrait of Albert, 1863 (© Hulton Royals Collection / Getty Images)

      12. Her Majesty at Osborne in 1866 by Sir Edwin Landseer, 1867 (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      13. Queen Victoria with a spinning wheel, 1875 (© Hulton Royals Collection / Getty Images)

      14.The Family of Queen Victoria in 1887 by Laurits Regner Tuxen, 1887 (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      15. Queen Victoria by Jean Joseph Benjamin-Constant, 1899 (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / The Bridgeman Art Library)

      Introduction

      ON THE EVE of Queen Victoria’s coronation, in June 1838, Charles Greville committed to his diary a memorable description of the capital.