Volume 1, Number 8 · December 12, 1963
The Queen of Hearts
By Neal Ascherson
Queen Victoria's Early Letters
edited by John Raymond
Macmillan, 310 pp., $4.00
'You forget, my dearest Love, that I am the Sovereign.' This is how a girl of twenty wrote to the young man she was about to marry. The candor is stunning. Some have found it disarming, but perhaps they also forget that Victoria remained the Sovereign for no less than sixty-four years, in much the same frame of mind. These letters, covering the first part of her reign up to the death of the Prince Consort, produce a chilling effect. The imperiousness of fat-cheeked Little Vic soon loses its charm. By 1862, she looks more like a little tyrant.
Review, 1540 words
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