Queen Victoria A Personal History Author:Christopher Hibbert On the centenary of Victoria's death, the lively and pungent Christopher Hibbert offers yet another radical reassessment of a British monarch we only thought we knew "Mein Gott! That is a woman!" exclaimed Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, as he emerged, shaken and mopping his brow, from an interview with Queen Victoria. The unearthing of such li... more »vely, telling anecdotes is the special province of Christopher Hibbert. So is his ability to get readers to radically reassess their received notions about some of the world's best-known historical figures. This new biography of Victoria is vintage Hibbert. We learn in these pages that not only was Victoria the formidable, demanding, capricious queen of popular imagination, but she was also often shy and vulnerable, prone to giggling fits and crying jags. She ascended to the throne at age eighteen; her sixty-four-year reign saw enemies fall, empires crumble, and England's rise to global and industrial dominance. Hibbert's account of Victoria's life is every bit as dramatic and colorful as the age that bears her name. He reveals to us the real Victoria-in all her complexity.« less