Victoria: The Queen by Julia Baird

752 Pages
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group – Random House, Random House
Release Date: November 22, 2016

Nonfiction, Biographies, Memoirs

Victoria was the longest reigning monarch until Elizabeth II. This is her story based on unpublished papers and diaries. Victoria did so much to help women and minorities. She treated people fairly and when she died, the whole world took a pause.

The author did a wonderful job researching for this book. Although it is a long book, Victoria lived a long full life and the author needed that long to tell her story. If you enjoyed watching Victoria on PBS, you will enjoy reading this book.

I have been an admirer of Queen Victoria for a very long time, but this is the first real biography I've read. Julia Baird does an excellent job of detailing her entire life, from the race to give birth to the heir to throne through her romance with Albert, their nine children, her consuming grief when Albert died, and how the world changed during her 63 year reign. Victoria is presented as a real person, with all her triumphs and failures, along with various relationships she had throughout her long life. This is not a short book in any way, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend it!

I ended up being gifted the audiobook of this Victoria biography, so I ear read rather than eye-read. This is a thorough deep dive of an iconic monarch. The writing is engaging, and I look forward to reading more of Baird's writing.

The Victorian Age was so important to England and Europe, and of course it all starts with Queen Victoria herself. I learned a great deal about her from this book.

This is a top-rate biography of Victoria. I learned a lot from reading it and was fascinated by the life of the queen. Even though it is long, this book is thorough and is an excellent reference.

I loved it! It was such a beautifully, detailed biography. There were times I forgot I was reading a non-fiction book. The language read like a novel but provided a useful learning experience. I learned so much about Queen Victoria after reading this. No wonder her reign was so memorable. Her longevity and endurance is such an inspiration and unlike any I have ever read about. Truly the best Queen Victoria biography I have read to date.

Very good. Enjoyed reading all about a well known figure in a different light. In some places the chapters were a little bit too long. Recommend

I loved this book. The attention to detail was phenomenal. This book details the entire life of one of Great Britain's monarchs. Victoria may have been a small woman, but she packed quite a punch. She was willful, and stubborn. Her relationship with Prince Albert is the stuff of legends.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys British history.

Quite an encompassing read. There's so much about her that I didn't know. Marvelous job.

An excellent biography of a woman I thought I knew but ended up learning so much about. Victoria is in many ways an enigma. A far more interesting monarch than I'd originally thought.

Sometimes you just need a little historical royalty to float your boat and this detailed insight into England's Queen Victoria and her reign from beginning to end, did just that!

"When Alexandrina Victoria was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on 20 June 1837, she was 18 years old and barely five feet tall... " "She was a tiny, powerful woman who reigned for an astonishing 64 years. By the time of her Diamond Jubilee Procession in 1897, she reigned over a fourth of the inhabitable part of the world, had 400 million subjects, and had given birth to nine children."

A surprisingly bold portrait of this regal figure, told with such depth allows a fascinating glance at her life both before and during her reign. Destined to face controversy and prejudice right from the day of her birth, this biography shines an honest light on how Queen Victoria fought her way through the many layers of imprisonment of her own gender and how she shocked and awed not only a nation but the world and continues to do so today.

I highly recommend this read for any fans of history or the royals or even someone seeking a little motivation for never taking the easy road and fighting for what you believe in.

What an incredible read! Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing. This is now one of my all time favs! A must read for anyone who LOVES the British royalty! She was a truly strong woman! I think I'll have to read this story again. She was just so good! We need leaders like her today in this world!!

Seemed to include to many details that did not add to the story theme. It was more information that I was after and parts were repeated. I thought this book could have been more thoroughly edited and found myself frustrated with following the progression of events...too much going back and forth in time.

Such a detailed and fascinating history on one of the United Kingdom's most famous monarchs. I have read several books on Victoria and this one was quite detailed. It did give a lot of information that I had not previously read. Overall I think this is a great look at a woman who lent her name to a whole era.

Amazing! Filled with historical information gleaned from archives, yet written in a delightful manner. You will be filled with tidbits that make Victoria, the Queen come to life. Enjoy! NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Random House provided an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Exhaustive biography of Queen Victoria, with use of less familiar archives to supplement the meager official material heavily edited by the Queen's daughter. Well written, exhaustively researched, meticulously footnoted--the best review one researcher can give another.

This book is well researched on Victoria not only as a queen, but also as a mother, a wife, besides being very good at calculating the politics of her time. The author focuses on Queen Victoria's family life including love and sex. She also watched what happened with the Crimean War., uprisings, Ireland's famine and several social pressures. It appears at times that she was a feminist but of course that didn't exist in her time. She however wanted to be seen as more than a wife but as a queen of power and influence. It is an excellent biography. I feel as if I got to know Queen Victoria as a woman and as a queen.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. This is one of the best books I've read in 2017. It was an amazing read. Although it's non-fiction, it completely read like a novel. I could hardly put it down. I ended up reading Daisy Goodwin's *Victoria* at the same time which made it even more enjoyable. This biography was so good, I would definitely read more from this author.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

This book of is a well-researched biography of Queen Victoria, who lived from 1819 to 1901 and ruled Britain from the age of 18. Julia Baird was allowed access to documents not released in the past, so she is able to shed additional insight to a queen who is already so well-known.

Victoria seemed to be a woman of many dichotomies. She hated being pregnant and feared childbirth, yet she bore 9 children. She loved her husband, Albert, passionately and believed everything he told her, but he used that power to make her feel unworthy. She did not feel women deserved the right to vote, yet she was the most powerful woman in the world. After Albert died, she yearned to join him in death, yet she clung to life to the end. In many situations, she talked of how weak she was, yet showed her strength in her actions.

I did not know much about Victoria prior to reading this book, but I learned a lot from it. It was a fascinating look into one of England’s longest-reigning monarchs.

**This book was reviewed for Manhattan and Seattle Book Reviews and via Netgalley**

Drawing on sources previously unavailable, Baird gives us an intimate look at the Queen who defined and gave name to an entire era. I will admit, I am a huge fan of the Victorian Period from a historical/literary perspective, but for all that, I knew very little about the Queen herself.

Victoria: The Queen is a monster of a book, at over five hundred pages. We follow the Queen-to-be from birth, through her long and illustrious life. Far from the dour and reclusive person that is the common perception, Victoria was a fiery, strong-willed woman with a stubborn streak a mile long. It was the continuing contention from the era previous, and down through the Victorian, that women were supposed to be meek and submit to the men in their lives. That Victoria ruled the greatest Empire of the time, and often refused to give in to the 'well-meaning’ men in her life speaks volumes to her character. I think she would have been wonderful to have met in person.

Interspersed throughout are snippets from Victoria’s own journals, and historic notes of the times. I can empathise, across the ages, with Victoria’s frustrations and antagonistic relationship with her mother. My own has been rather similar. It was quite interesting to see the later parallels between Victoria's relationship with her mother, and her own later relationships with her own children. Via nature and nurture, for better or worse, Victoria shared many traits with her mother. The stubbornness for one, and a need for control that caused others to chafe at times. Victoria was lucky to find such a perfect balanced opposite in her husband, Prince Albert. Here’s another figure I knew very little about. He, too, seems a fascinating person. From his description, he seems more introverted than Victoria, prizing deep conversation to frivolity.

Some of the more detailed historical notes of the times I just had to shake my head at, such as the notions surrounding pregnancy,birth, and women’s sexuality. There were plenty of 'wtf’ moments, to be sure. For a time of such 'enlightenment', the people of the times seem pretty dense when it came to a lot of things. While the Victorian​ Era will likely always fascinate me, would I want to live during this time? Absolutely not! Haha. I did find Baird's intimations that Albert shaped more of the era than most realise, and that, had circumstances played out differently, we may well have had an era named for him instead!

Baird pulled no punches with this exhaustive biography, to be sure. We see Victoria and her best, and her worst, at her most regal, and her most human. She ascended the throne at a young age, and had need to mature as a monarch. Mistakes were made, some serious, such as the incident with Lady Flora, early in her reign. But from most mistakes, Victoria did learn and grow, leaving behind an enduring legacy.

📚📚📚📚📚 Highly recommended, if you have an interest in the Victorian Era, Queen Victoria herself, or are a history buff in general.