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Summary
Summary
As she did in her critically acclaimed The Last Days of the Romanovs , Helen Rappaport brings a compelling documentary feel to the story of this royal marriage and of the queen's obsessive love for her husband - a story that began as fairy tale and ended in tragedy.
After the untimely death of Prince Albert, the queen and her nation were plunged into a state of grief so profound that this one event would dramatically alter the shape of the British monarchy. For Britain had not just lost a prince: during his twenty year marriage to Queen Victoria, Prince Albert had increasingly performed the function of King in all but name. The outpouring of grief after Albert's death was so extreme, that its like would not be seen again until the death of Princess Diana136 years later.
Drawing on many letters, diaries and memoirs from the Royal Archives and other neglected sources, as well as the newspapers of the day, Rappaport offers a new perspective on this compelling historical psychodrama -- the crucial final months of the prince's life and the first long, dark ten years of the Queen's retreat from public view. She draws a portrait of a queen obsessed with her living husband and - after his death - with his enduring place in history. Magnificent Obsession will also throw new light on the true nature of the prince's chronic physical condition, overturning for good the 150-year old myth that he died of typhoid fever.
Author Notes
Helen F. Rappaport was born in 1947 in Bromley. She is a British historian, author, and actress. She studied Russian at Leeds University where she was involved in the university theatre group and launched her acting career. After acting with the Leeds University theatre group she appeared in several television series including Crown Court, Love Hurts and The Bill.
In the early nineties she became a copy editor for academic publishers Blackwell and OUP. She also contributed to historical and biographical reference works published by Cassell and Readers Digest. She became a full-time writer in 1998, writing three books including An Encyclopaedia of Women Social Reformers in 2001, with a foreword by Marian Wright Edelman. It won an award in 2002 from the American Library Association as an Outstanding Reference Source. Her 2008 book Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs received many positive reviews in both the UK and US where it became a bestseller.
Her titles include: Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion, Conspirator: Lenin in Exile, Magnificent Obsession; Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy, and Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography. In 2014 her title, The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra made The New York Times Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In a sad portrayal of Queen Victoria, Rappaport shows her plunged into deep mourning after the death of Prince Albert in 1861 at age 42. The queen avoided public appearances for 10 years, wearing black for the remainder of her life, and building enormously expensive memorials-and, says independent historian Rappaport, dangerously diminished the monarchy's popularity and enabled republicanism in the process. Her orgy of grief-which Rappaport interprets as indulgent but also a sign of clinical depression-came to an end when her heir, the rakish Bertie, almost died of typhoid fever. In their 21-year marriage, Victoria was besotted with Albert, who eclipsed her relationship with her nine children, undermined her self-confidence, and made her totally dependent as he effectively ruled as king. Offering strong circumstantial evidence against the official report that Albert died of typhoid fever, Rappaport (The Last Days of the Romanovs) suggests that an overworked, depressed Albert-disliked by a nation he devotedly served and trying to keep Britain from entering the American Civil War on the side of the South-died of Crohn's disease complicated by pneumonia. Rappaport offers an absorbing, perceptive, and detailed picture of a constitutional monarchy in crisis. 16 pages of b&w photos. Agent: Charlie Viney, the Vine Agency (U.K.) (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
In Britain, numerous statues and memorials, a mausoleum, and a concert hall are dedicated to Prince Albert, legacies of Queen Victoria's mourning for her consort, who died in 1861 though not of typhoid fever, as popularly believed, argues Rappaport, whose dense but easily readable account of Victoria's grief plumbs its psychological course and the effects her self-obsessed sorrow had on the British throne. As Rappaport relates, Victoria practically ceased acting as queen for a decade. Her dispatch boxes remained unopened, Parliament opened without her, she rarely appeared in public, and when she did, it was in billows of black fabric. As Victoria's seclusion lengthened and insinuating rumors rose of her reliance on a factotum named John Brown, press and political murmurs swirled that Britain functioned perfectly well without a monarchy. That they voiced minority opinions, Rappaport shows, is borne out by the depth of royalist sentiment Victoria discovered when she published a book about her life with Albert and when Brown defended her from an assassin. A fluid and astute writer, Rappaport delivers a historically discerning portrait of Victoria in the 1860s.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2010 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Conspirator: Lenin in Exile, 2010, etc.) depicts in this readable narrative. Twenty happy years of marriage had produced nine healthy children--unheard of in that era of common infant mortality--and a solid sovereign partnership by 1861. Yet within the year, the unthinkable happened: A mysterious debilitating illness seized her husband, and he died on Dec. 15. Victoria's all-consuming grief stemmed partly from a deliberate denial of the seriousness of Albert's disease, both on the part of the doctors and her own willful intractability. A man of regular habits, excellent education, incorruptible rectitude, absolute loyalty and finest culture, Prince Albert had instructed his wife over the years on how to be a proper queen, ironically bolstering her enormous popularity to the detriment of his own. Essentially for the next 10 years she devoted herself to preserving his memory. She erected monuments (a regular "Albertopolis"), banished all pleasures at court, supported an entire industry of black fabrics and jet jewelry and published his speeches and memoir of their life together in Scotland. Eventually the public and the government grew tired of her "luxury of woe" and by year three she was being roundly criticized for her seclusion. Thanks to the loyalty of her favored Highland attendant, John Brown, her fondness for Benjamin Disraeli and her distaste for her profligate heir, Bertie, Queen Victoria got back in the saddle--though Rappaport skates over her transformation in one concluding page, keeping readers wanting more. Fluid reading by the knowledgeable author of Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Rappaport's (The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg) book is a revelation, presenting the story behind Queen Victoria's relationship with her beloved Consort, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Whereas historically Victoria was known as a steadfast, confident queen from the beginning of her reign in 1837, this well-researched study shows otherwise: it was Albert who actually ran the empire, directing a pliant Victoria and usurping her role as monarch. Though a sickly man prone to stomach ailments, he never allowed his illnesses to keep him from performing the duties of a head of state. Only upon Albert's death in late 1861 was Victoria allowed to emerge, assuming the strength and spirit of her late and much-mourned husband for the following four decades of her reign. Rappaport has revealed the true commanding presence of Albert: strong father, dictatorial husband, and king without the title-going so far as to describe the period as "Albertian" rather than "Victorian," a powerful and startling statement. VERDICT This riveting biography, which draws on documents previously overlooked, is a work of scholarship that would enhance any collection. Recommended for all readers of historical royal biography or 19th-century British history.-Lisa Guidarini, Algonquin P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Preface & Acknowledgements | p. xi |
| List of Illustrations | p. xv |
| Prologue: Christmas 1860 | p. 1 |
| Part 1 Albert the Good | p. II |
| 1 'The Treadmill of Never-EndingBusiness' | p. 13 |
| 2 'The First Real Blow of Misfortune' | p. 29 |
| 3 'Fearfully in Want of a True Friend' | p. 42 |
| 4 'Our Most Precious Invalid' | p. 57 |
| 5 'Day Turned into Night' | p. 74 |
| 6 'Our Great National Calamity' | p. 86 |
| 7 'Will They Do Him Justice Now?' | p. 105 |
| 8 'How Will the Queen Bear It?' | p. 118 |
| Part 2 The Broken-HeartedWidow | p. 127 |
| 9 'All Alone!' | p. 129 |
| 10 'The Luxury of Woe' | p. 147 |
| 11 'A Married Daughter I Must Have Living with Me' | p. 161 |
| 12 'God Knows How I Want So Much to be Taken Care Of' | p. 177 |
| 13 'The Queen Is Invisible' | p. 196 |
| 14 'Heaven Has Sent Us this Dispensation to Save Us' | p. 213 |
| 15 Albertopolis | p. 232 |
| Epilogue: Christmas 1878 | p. 243 |
| Appendix: What Killed Prince Albert? | p. 249 |
| Notes | p. 261 |
| Bibliography | p. 299 |
| Index | p. 313 |
