Search results for ""author elizabeth longford""

'The truth was stranger than any of the fictions that have since been offered to explain her away'Drawing upon Queen Victoria's previously unpublished journals, Elizabeth Longford's classic biography recalls the contrasts and curiosities of an earlier era with exquisite detail - and transforms the queen from a severe, time-worn effigy into a human being who loved, feared and fumed. Longford probes the contradictions of a woman who wore a bonnet instead of a crown at her Golden Jubilee and yet was recognised always as both dignified and formidable. She chronicles both the Queen's public life and her emotional travails, including surprisingly stormy passages in her and Prince Albert's otherwise loving marriage. A refreshingly human image of the Queen emerges: voluble, passionate, politic and articulate, with an irresistible mixture of grandeur and simplicity.'Dazzlingly readable, and very enjoyable' Stella Gibbons'Queen Victoria has in Lady Longford her fullest and best-informed, most sensible and sympathetic biographer' The Times'Gives us more than the general reader has ever had, revealing the Queen as a character at once simple and complex, authoritarian and humble' Daily Telegraph

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Queen Victoria was the longest reigning monarch in British history. In this concise biography, Lady Longford, long recognised as an authority on the subject, gives a full account of Queen Victoria's life and provides her unique assessment of the monarch. Victoria ascended the throne in 1837 on the death of her uncle William IV. In 1840 she married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and for the next twenty years they were inseparable. Their descendants were to succeed to most of the thrones of Europe. When Albert died in 1861 Victoria's overwhelming grief caused her to almost withdraw from public life for several years. This perceived dereliction of public duty, coupled with rumours about her relationship with her Scottish ghillie, John Brown, led to increasing criticism. Coaxed back into the public eye by Disraeli, she resumed her political and constitutional interest with vigour until her death in 1901.

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Elizabeth Longford proves the truth of the old saying that Mother knows best, a theory that is being treated with renewed respect by many of todays experts in child-rearing. She cites from her own experience as the mother of a large family, and quotes from letters which she received from other parents. They are all faced with similar situations: childish fantasies; the problem of good manners and how to enforce them; whether or not one should punish a child, and how; dealing with the spoilt youngest child; and family squabbles. They are not necessarily problems (although some of them are), but points in a familys life on which nearly all parents would welcome some suggestions from others who have had the same experiences. Written in a witty and entertaining style, All in the Family contains an abundance of practical advice that no parent would want to miss.

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Elizabeth Longford has chosen eleven Victorian women who in their actions or writing challenged the repressive rules of established society. They include Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, whose cloistered lives were illuminated by the vividness of their creative genius; Josephine Butler, who brought about the end of the infamous Contagious Diseases Acts; Annie Besant, who campaigned vigorously for the rights of women subject to unreasonable husbands or harsh employers; Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin brought the cruelties of slavery to the world's attention; and James Barry, born Margaret Bulkley, medical reformer and arguably the first British female to qualify as a suregon. Eminent Victorian Women is a highly readable account of this period of struggle for women's rights and of some of the remarkable personalities who took part.

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