Victoria. Daisy
Goodwin. St. Martin’s Press. November 2016. 416 pp. ISBN#: 9781250045461.
Daisy
Goodwin wrote the novel, Victoria,
while she was writing the screenplay of the PBS series due to be shown
beginning in January 2017. It is also
ironic that it follows the biography of Victoria by Julia Baird almost
simultaneously being published. The
novel about Victoria, however, is confined to the time between Victoria first
becoming Queen of England at the age of 19 up to the time when she marries
Albert in the early nineteenth century.
This is a very young Victoria, whose deepest consolations vacillate
between her little dog Dash and the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne or William
Lamb. So anxious is she to shed the
advice of her domineering mother and her mother’s lover, Sir John Conroy, that Queen
Victoria flounders, making many huge mistakes but somehow making up for them
with her gracious ways. Lord Melbourne
clearly was the ruler’s right-hand man.
Although
Victoria has received an education in history and other appropriate subjects
for her role, she displays a child-like ignorance of many of the issues of
pivotal importance in her kingdom. So,
we see how rebellion in Ireland, the protests of the Chartists, and other
“situations” required Lord Melbourne’s guiding hand; but this is true of every
day. At the same time we see her kinder
nature evident in those rebels who escaped hanging because of the Queen’s merciful
nature.
Queen
Victoria’s reputation is almost permanently ruined when she makes a very bad
judgment about one of her ladies-in-waiting.
Thus the Queen has her first taste of the people’s favor dramatically
turning, along with the realization that she rules with the approval (or not)
of her subjects.
Many
more fascinating scenes fill the pages of this notable novel soon to be seen in
film. Read it to the vicissitudes of how
this young woman grew into the noble, intelligent and wise ruler of Great
Britain for sixty-three years. Daisy Goodwin
has once again captured the essence of an age, royalty, and the world
surrounding royalty! This reviewer
eagerly anticipates the film version of this notable historical novel!
