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Around the World in Books / England
The Queen Who Believed ‘Women Were Not Made for Governing’
A good biography shows little-known sides of a royal couple who combined an affairs of the heart and affairs of state
This is the fifth in a series of 30 reviews of books from 30 countries appearing during the first 30 days of March. Tomorrow: Ethiopia
Gillian Gill has written an ideal biography for casual travelers to Britain. If Helen of Troy had “the face that launched a thousand ships,” Queen Victoria had the face that launched a thousand bronze or stone statues. Her beloved cousin and husband, Prince Albert, inspired others after he died of typhoid at the age of 42, including one now covered in golf leaf in Kensington Gardens.
Gill, a Cardiff-born scholar, focuses on the lives of the royal couple and how they shaped the modern world, not the commemorative statuary, in We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, and Rivals (Ballantine, 2009). But her book helps to explain why, throughout Britain, “Queen Victoria undoubtedly has more dedications, place namings and other commemorations than any other non-religious figure,” as The Londonist put it.
