Lady Longford had unrestricted access to the Royal Archives and unpublished passages from Queen Victoria's celebrated Journals, as well as many private collections not available for 40 years, to craft this biography. This brilliantly informed and perceptive narrative follows the young Queen, tormented by an unhappy childhood, through her unprecedented career as Britian's ruling monarch for 64 years - a woman of diminutive stature and superabundant temperament. Wonderfully illustrated.