Author(s): Lytton Strachey

Fiction

Lytton Strachey's acclaimed portrayal of Queen Victoria revolutionised the art of biography by using elements of romantic fiction and melodrama to create a warm, humorous and very human portrait of this iconic figure. We see Victoria as a strong-willed child with a famous temper, as the 18-year-old girl queen, as a monarch, wife, mother and widow. Equally fascinating are the depictions of her relationships: with her governess "precious Lehzen", with Peel, Gladstone and Disraeli, with her beloved Albert and, in later life, her legendary devotion to her Highland servant John Brown, all of which show a different side of the staid, pious image that is so often attached to her. Awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Strachey's classic biography remains one of the best and most readable accounts of the Queen who defined an era.