Victoria's father was meant to be king, but he died young. I finished the book this week with one episode still left to watch to see how this chapter of the story ends - and so far, I'm quite fascinated. I won this book through a giveaway but had already started watching the TV series. I was very sad when Downton Abbey was ending, but looked forward to the release of 'The Gilded Age,' 'The Crown,' and 'Victoria,' all of which handled similar themes and historical families. She is quite happy being queen with the help of her prime minister, Lord Melbourne, who may be old enough to be her father but is the first person to take her seriously.ĭrawing on Victoria s diaries, which she first started reading when she was a student at Cambridge University, as well as her own brilliant gifts for history and drama, Daisy Goodwin, author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter as well as creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria, brings the young queen richly to life in this magnificent novel.Ĥ+ stars to Daisy Goodwin's Victoria, a historical fiction novel released with a PBS TV series bringing the book to life on Sunday evenings. She has very definite ideas about the kind of queen she wants to be, and the first thing is to choose her name.Įveryone keeps saying she is destined to marry her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, but Victoria found him dull and priggish when they met three years ago. Surely she must rely on her mother and her venal advisor, Sir John Conroy, or her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, who are all too eager to relieve her of the burdens of power. The men who run the country have doubts about whether this sheltered young woman, who stands less than five feet tall, can rule the greatest nation in the world. Early one morning, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria is roused from bed with the news that her uncle William IV has died and she is now Queen of England.

Victoria by daisy goodwin summary