This book attempts to portray Queen Victoria as she was, not as icons and caricatures have depicted her. The copy-book sovereign of pious propaganda bears little resemblance to the flawed but endearing mortal who governed half the world. If they only knew what I am really like, she remarked ruefully on being shown an absurdly extravagant tribute. Many of her contemporaries carried idolatry too far, and after the First World War a reaction set in. Her detractors, however, got little nearer the truth in their anxiety to disparage her. To maintain that she was an hypocritical kill-joy demanded a perversity bordering on total ignorance. The Queen was born in the last year of George III's reign, and died a couple of months before Hitler's 12th birthday. She corresponded with Tennyson, was taught drawing by Edward Lear, and had singing lessons from Mendelssohn. Not only was she a dominant force in British politics for most of the 19th century, but wielded an influence over the rulers of Europe unprecedented in history. It has often been argued that Queen Victoria was a representative figure, but in many respects she was also a nonconformist. Her views on class and race were far in advance of her time, and her churchmanship was positively heretical. Greville described her as possessing the most interesting mind and character in the world, and the more one learns of her richly ambivalent nature, the more one falls under her spell.