Victoria

AN Wilson

Atlantic Books, 656 pages, Rs.699

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, she had ruled for nearly 64 years. She was a mother of nine and a grandmother of 42, and the matriarch of Royal Europe through the marriages of her children. Contrary to her popular image as an aging, stiff widow, paraded as the figurehead of an all-male imperial enterprise, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch was one of the most passionate, expressive, humorous and unconventional women who ever lived. AN Wilson’s exhaustively researched biography shows us Queen Victoria as she’s never been seen before.