Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire
Julia Baird, 2016
Random House
752 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400069880
Summary
This page-turning biography reveals the real woman behind the myth: a bold, glamorous, unbreakable queen—a Victoria for our times. Drawing on previously unpublished papers, this stunning new portrait is a story of love and heartbreak, of devotion and grief, of strength and resilience.
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. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1971 (?)
• Where—Sydney, Australia
• Education—B.A., Ph.D. University of Sydney
• Currently—lives in Sydney
Julia Baird is an Australian political journalist, television commentator, and author of two nonfiction books: Media Tarts: Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians (2004), and Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire (2016).
Early life and education
Baird was born in Sydney, the middle child of politician Bruce Baird and his wife Judy. Her older brother, Michael has served as Premier of New South Wales. The family lived in Rye, New York, in the U.S. during the 1970s while her father was Australian Trade Commissioner They returned to Australia in 1980, after which Baird attended Ravenswood School for Girls.
Baird earned her B.A. and, in 2001, her Ph.D in history from the University of Sydney. Her doctoral thesis was on women in politics. In 2005, she was a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University researching the globalization of American opinion in the lead up to the Iraq war.
Career
Baird started her journalistic career with the Sydney Morning Herald in 1998 and, by 2000, was editor of the Opinion pages. She was a campaigner for women in the Sydney diocese of the Anglican church and also worked as a religious commentator for Triple J and as a freelancer for ABC Radio. Her first book, Media Tarts was published in 2004.
In 2006, Baird became deputy editor at Newsweek in New York City, working there until it ceased print publication in 2012. She also wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Her topics have included gender and politics, covering for example misogyny in Australian politics and transgender soldiers in the American military. She has also written about religious topics, and more recently about Donald Trump's political strategy.
She returned to Australia and currently hosts the The Drum, a current affairs television show. In 2016 she published her biography of Queen Victoria.
Personal life
Baird has two children. In 2015, she revealed in a New York Times column that she was recovering from surgery for ovarian cancer. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 12/11/2016.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
Victoria the Queen, Julia Baird’s exquisitely wrought and meticulously researched biography, brushes the dusty myth off this extraordinary monarch. Right out of the gate, the book thrums with authority as Baird builds her portrayal of Victoria. Overturning stereotypes, she rips this queen down to the studs and creates her anew. . . . Baird’s Victoria isn’t the woman we expect to meet. Her queen is a pure iconoclast: emotional, demonstrative, sexual and driven. . . . Baird writes in the round. She constructs a dynamic historical figure, then spins out a spherical world of elegant reference, anchoring the narrative in specific detail and pinning down complex swaths of history that, in less capable hands, would simply blow away (Editor’s Choice).
New York Times Book Review
Victoria: The Queen is that rare bird of serious historical biography, a page-turner. Writing with grace and authority, Baird reaches well beyond the conventional image of a reclusive and compliant queen to reveal “a robust and interventionist ruler,” iron-willed, uncompromising and sexually charged—a most unvictorian woman. . . . As a writer and historian, Baird has a wonderful gift for compressing complicated personalities and historical events.
Dallas Morning News
In this in-depth look at a feminist before her time, you’ll balk at, cheer on, and mourn the obstacles in the life of the teen queen who grew into her throne.
Marie Claire
Victoria’s rich personal life makes for interesting reading, but Baird’s attempts to trace the beginnings of the suffrage and anti-slavery movements to the values embodied in Victoria’s reign are unconvincing.... Baird’s empathy for her subject is apparent throughout, however, and...she imbues the chilly figure of Victoria with welcome humor and warmth.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Baird convincingly reframes the public perception of Victoria as a mother, along with providing unprecedented insight into her relationships following Prince Albert’s death.... Baird crafts a comprehensive study of the monarch and others with whom she was involved in an engaging, smoothly rendered narrative.... [An] excellent biography.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Baird writes with such spirit and well-founded authority that readers will feel as though the story of the famous British queen is being told for the first time. . . . Baird does not turn a blind eye on Victoria’s darker sides, including her willfulness, selfishness, and self pity. But that simply adds dimensions to a significant character.
Booklist
Baird draws on previously unpublished sources to fashion a lively, perceptive portrait of the long-reigning queen.... Baird shrewdly assesses the quality of the queen’s family life and creates sharply drawn portraits of the major players in her circle.... A well-researched biography sensitive to Queen Victoria as a woman.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Victoria: The Queen...then take off on your own :
1. Talk about the surprising, indeed, ironic, ways that Queen Victoria defied the strict codes of decorum—standards of behavior that were encoded with her name for an entire era. In other words, how was Victoria not a Victorian?
2. Describe the Queen: her young self, and trace the ways in which she changed into her middle-aged and then older self—the public figure we are most familiar with: a short, round woman, draped in black and a frown.
3. How would you describe Prince Albert? What was the couple's marriage like? In what way did he undermine Victoria's confidence as a ruler or undercut her authority?
4. The Queen had nine children. What kind of mother was she?
5. How would you describe Victoria's "management skills" and treatment of the men who surrounded her? How did she manage to use her feminity to her advantage in that most masculine of worlds?
6. Victoria sought to endow the "primarily ceremonial and symbolic" role of her monarchy with power and influence. Was she successful?
7. The Queen's inner circle included luminaries such as Lord Melbourne and Benjamin Disraeli, to name only two. Talk about her relationship with Melbourne, for instance, as well as others. Who needed her, and whom did she need?
8. After reading Julia Baird's biography, what surprised you most about Victoria or the great events of her age? Before reading Baird's book, how much did you know about the politics of the age and the spread of the British empire? What new insights have you come away with?
9. For comparison (and for sheer fun) watch the new Amazon series on Queen Elizabeth II. Do you see any similarities in the situations of the two female monarchs?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)