Censoring Queen Victoria

January 6, 2014
For more than 60 years biographers lacked access to Queen Victoria’s voluminous correspondence, relying “instead on the published selections of letters produced by ‘royal command.’ ” Reginald Brett, second Viscount Esher, conceived of editing these letters. A political operator and intimate of Edward VII, he was a secret pedophile who perpetrated an incestuous relationship with one of his sons. Esher enlisted Arthur Benson, a depressed, vacillating, homosexual Eton housemaster and acclaimed biographer of his ferocious father Edward, a former Archbishop of Canterbury. Although the project’s intention was to let the Queen “speak for herself,” the editors omitted most of Victoria’s correspondence with “female relations and friends,” and all references to the Flora Hastings scandal wherein Victoria sullied the reputation of her “bullying” mother’s ally. Similarly, “here was little mention of children,” while her European correspondence was edited to downplay foreign influence. Victoria’s assertive approach to her ministers was softened, her devotion to Prime Minister Melbourne highlighted, and her views about the French tempered, resulting in an inaccurate portrait of an innocent girl-queen as a mere accessory to “the strong men who surrounded her.” However enlightening, Ward’s earnest, thorough detailing of editorial minutiae will appeal mainly to Victoria scholars and enthusiasts.

March 1, 2014
An Australian historian's study of the two men who edited Queen Victoria's letters and how their methods and choices affected posterity's view of her. Queen Victoria (1819-1901) was a remarkably prolific correspondent. According to some historians, she produced upward of "two and half thousand words each day of her adult life [and] sixty million words in the course of her reign." When she died, her son, Edward VII, commissioned a well-respected official, Reginald Brett, otherwise known as the second Lord Esher, to produce a memorial biography of the late queen. Esher in turn decided to create a publishable collection of her letters up to the death of Albert in 1861. Realizing he could not do the task alone, Esher hired noted essayist, poet and Eton academic Arthur Benson to assist. Esher wanted to create a two-volume collection that focused on Victoria's relationship to the men who shaped her as a ruler. Benson, however, sought to emphasize the historical and social events in which the queen participated and proposed adding up to two more volumes. Neither sought to consider Victoria's roles as wife, mother and friend to other women. In her analysis of these two biographers, Ward examines the complex working relationship between them. In particular, she focuses on their internal power plays, which stemmed from their very different temperaments and social classes. Wealthy, charming and polished, Esher had all the advantages, including access to, and influence over, King Edward. Though born to an upper-middle-class family with good connections, the depressive Benson often found himself at odds with aristocrats, even as he struggled to gain acceptance into their circles. Rich in intrigue, Ward's book offers not only an enlightening look at the two men who defined Queen Victoria to the future, but also the ways that notions about gender influenced early-20th-century biographical portraiture.

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January 1, 2014

Queen Victoria was a prolific correspondent, estimated to have written 2,500 words a day--and 60 million total during her reign. After her death in 1901, two men from the circle of her son King Edward VII, Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher, and A.C. Benson, a prolific poet and essayist, were given the task of editing her correspondence (i.e., also letters received) from her accession to the throne in 1837 to the death of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861. Edward VII had final say on the book's content. In Australian historian Ward's first book, she argues that these men's decisions as to what to include (only a fraction of what Victoria wrote or received) was to shape the queen's image for decades. Both editors were tasked with publishing a body of letters that would not offend or scandalize but that would also not be boring. They decided on the narrative of a young queen who, under the guidance of wise men, became a great monarch. Very much men of their era, they included none of Victoria's correspondence with other women, deeming it trivial, and presented little reference to Victoria's nine children. VERDICT Ward, who was granted full access to the archives at Windsor Castle, demonstrates the power that the few can have over the historical record of an individual. While long block quotes and excessive detail can make the book tedious in places, it is recommended for anyone interested in historiography, British history, or Queen Victoria herself.--Jason Martin, Stetson Univ. Lib., DeLand, FL

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February 15, 2014
For more than a century, Queen Victoria has been viewed through a distorted historical lens. After Victoria's death, in 1901, Reginald Brett (Lord Esher) and Arthur Benson, two eccentric, relatively minor, and fundamentally ill-suited court factotums, were assigned the task of editing the queen's voluminous correspondenceit is estimated she wrote an average of 2,500 words each day of her adult lifefor public consumption. The result: they winnowed down 460 volumes into a mere 3. After gaining access to the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle and growing more intrigued by what was left out and why, Ward presents the story of these men and their multilayered motivations for censoring out the all-too-human woman, wife, and mother hovering within the revered icon. This exciting and important piece of archival investigation fills in some enormous gaps in royal history and in Queen Victoria's official biography.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)