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ABOUT THIS BOOK

PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 9780192893857

RRP: £16.99

PAGES: 560

PUBLICATION DATE:
May 9, 2024

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Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, 1848-1861 & More Leaves, 1862-1882

By Queen Victoria, edited by Margaret Homans, Joanna Marschner, and Adrienne Munich

‘This solitude, the romance and wild loveliness of everything here . . . all make beloved Scotland the proudest, finest country in the world.’

Queen Victoria (1819-1901) wrote a diary nearly every day of her life. Originally intended for private circulation, later expanded to appeal to a wider public, these published diary entries cover not only the family holidays at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands which the Queen and Prince Albert enjoyed up until his death in 1861, but also the Queen’s journeys – as sovereign and as “Royal Tourist” – around Scotland, Ireland, and other regions within the British Isles. The books offer intimate views of the most important woman of her time as she shares her love of her family and of the Highlands, and demonstrates her intense interest in all corners of her realm and in the lives of individuals from all classes of society.

Queen Victoria’s writings about her life and travels in Scotland and the British Isles are fascinating and entertaining to read. Extremely popular when they first appeared, they shaped Victoria’s image in the nineteenth century, and their impact on public perceptions of the monarchy continues to this day. This volume includes complete and authoritative texts of the two journals; an introduction and explanatory endnotes providing historical and cultural contexts and new information about the Queen’s work as author and editor; maps of the Queen’s travels; a Cast of Characters briefly identifying many of the individuals the Queen meets or mentions; a Glossary of unfamiliar terms; and Suggestions for Further Reading.

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Queen Victoria (author)

Margaret Homans is Professor of English and of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. She has published widely on feminist and queer theory and on British and U.S. women writers, starting with Women Poets and Poetic Identity: Dorothy Wordsworth, Emily Brontë, and Emily Dickinson (1980). Her Victorian publications include Bearing the Word: Language and Female Experience in Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing (1986), Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British Culture, 1837-1876 (1998), Remaking Queen Victoria (1997) which she co-edited with Adrienne Munich, and The Imprint of Another Life: Adoption Narratives and Human Possibility (2013). She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on Virginia Woolf, on feminist and queer fiction and theory from Wollstonecraft to the present, and on Queen Victoria and Victorian literature.

Joanna Marschner is Senior Curator at Historic Royal Palaces. Based at Kensington Palace she has responsibility for the research, interpretation, and display of its collections of fine art and decorative art. Her publications include Queen Caroline: Cultural Politics at the Early Eighteenth Century Court (2014), and she was curator of the exhibition (2017) Enlightened Princesses: Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte and the Shaping of the Modern World, and lead editor of its accompanying publication. She has contributed chapters to Kensington Palace: Art Architecture and Society (2018) and been Principal Investigator of an AHRC funded project Victoria’s Self-Fashioning: Curating Royal Image for Dynasty, Nation, and Empire (2018-2020).

She is a member of international research teams for the Taj of the Raj: Victoria Memorial Hall Kolkata’, project (2020-2025) and the Project for the Conservation, Preservation, and Research on Empress Shōken’s Court Dress, Kyoto, Japan (2019-2025).

Adrienne Munich is Professor Emerita of English, Art, and Cultural and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University. She is also Co-editor Emerita of Victorian Literature and Culture, conceived by her and John Maynard and published by Cambridge University Press. In addition to edited collections on women and war, fashion and film, and Amy Lowell, her Victorian publications include Andromeda’s Chains (1989), Queen Victoria’s Secrets (1996), Remaking Queen Victoria (edited with Margaret Homans, 1997). More recent Victorian publications include “Raving with Love for the Queen: Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, and National Belonging,” with Anthony Teets for a collection, Dickens and Women Re-Observed (2020) and Empire of Diamonds: Victorian Gems in Imperial Settings (2020).