I have read multiple biographies of Queen Victoria and biographies of Prince Albert and of their numerous children and grandchildren. When A.N. Wilson’s “Victoria: A Life” became available I was reluctant to read it because I did not think there was more to learn about the Queen. However, I was totally wrong in my assumption and I found that this sprawling biography made for fascinating reading. It is true that very few substantial new facts emerge in this book. No new documents about the Queen have become available.Indeed, the Queen’s children including Bertie, the Prince of Wales and Princess Beatrice ensured that everything written by the Queen was either destroyed or highly censored as in the case of Beatrice’s so-called transcription of the Queen’s journals. The novelty here is that Mr. Wilson provides a psychological analysis of the Queen that I found to be most convincing. He depicts a person very different from that portrayed in other biographies. The only other extant psychological biography of a monarch which is of equal quality in my opinion is Stefan Zweig’s “Marie Antoinette” which although published in 1933 has stood the test of time.As Mr. Wilson points out Queen Victoria is a complete paradox. After reading this sprawling biography, I find it difficult to understand why the Queen was so venerated during her reign and why she continues to be venerated by so many up to the present time. Mr. Wilson tries to be fair to his subject. However, he paints a portrait that is mostly unflattering. It is clear that the Queen was a highly selfish woman. She had nine children only one of whom, Vicky, the Empress Frederick of Germany, was in any way distinguished. It is clear though that the Queen had no real fondness for her children. Even though Bertie, later Edward VII was a dissolute reprobate, he did not merit the nasty treatment that he received from his mother. Her hemophiliac son Leopold was treated by her as nothing more than a servant while Princess Beatrice became a sort of lady’s maid or royal servant.After Prince Albert’s death the Queen sought friendship, solace and even love in sources outside of her immediate family. It is clear that Mr. Wilson believes that the Queen slept with John Brown her uneducated, rough-around-the-edges, alcoholic Scottish servant who mistreated the Queen’s children and even insulted British prime ministers. Mr. Wilson also provides evidence that the Queen likely married John Brown in a secret ceremony at Balmoral Castle. It might seem prudish to disapprove of this sort of relationship, but it was highly atypical for a royal personage in those days and particularly for one like Victoria who attacked her son Bertie endlessly for his multiple extramarital affairs.The Queen apparently even consulted Brown about affairs of state such as the fate of Bulgaria. Mr. Wilson’s description of a scurrilous pamphlet published in New York, entitled “John Brown’s Legs, or Leaves from a Journal in the Lowlands” by Kenward Philip is absolutely hilarious. It presents itself as written by the Queen and bears the dedicatory inscription, “To the memory of those extraordinary Legs!” Queen Victoria we learn also wished to be buried wearing a gold wedding ring given her by Brown. Such was the sensitivity of this issue that even Princess Margaret apparently tried to suppress mention of this fact in a book written by the Queen’s doctor’s granddaughter-in-law published as recently as 1987! After Brown’s death the Queen took up with an Indian servant, Abdul Karim, the Munshi. Mr. Wilson does not think it likely that she slept with him. However, her devotion to this dishonest, uneducated, conniving man is remarkable. She spent countless hours in his company and was not even deterred when Sir James Reid, her personal physician, provided information that the Munshi suffered from recurring attacks of venereal disease, especially gonorrhea!Another unappealing quality manifested by the Queen was her habit of cadging money for herself and her large family from successive British prime ministers. We find that she constantly claimed to be impoverished despite a large personal income from the Duchy of Lancaster. She squirreled away her allocation from the Civil List. She saw no distinction between her personal wealth and taxpayer money and was thus able to accumulate a sizeable fortune. The Queen’s gluttony extended to food. She did not hesitate to criticize relatives who had become obese. However, she herself was a compulsive eater and was grossly overweight.Another unappealing characteristic of the Queen was her extreme idleness. However, she did not hesitate to criticize Bertie and other family members for this quality. Even allowing for her extended period of mourning after the death of Prince Albert, it is clear that the Queen refused to perform the duties which even in those days were expected of royal personages. She would not preside at the annual State Opening of Parliament and refused to attend investitures and open bridges and railways. In other words, the Queen did not earn her large income from the Civil List. She spent most of her time at Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, and at Balmoral in Scotland. She was therefore very rarely seen by her subjects unlike Queen Elizabeth II who has been a highly visible monarch.Mr. Wilson does point out that the Queen took a very active interest in both foreign and domestic affairs. Her relationships with successive British Prime Ministers are described in detail. I found her antagonistic relationship with Gladstone to be particularly interesting. It is amazing that a constitutional monarch like Queen Victoria could berate and harass her Prime Ministers about affairs of state and get away with it so completely. Mr. Wilson also provides brief descriptions of major historical events during the Queen’s long reign. I found these descriptions of long-forgotten wars and events to be particularly interesting and informative. Indeed, Mr. Wilson’s description of the Boer War and the factors leading to it is remarkably comprehensive.Royal biographies generally in my experience contain errors relating to the relationships of members of the vast European extended Royal family. Mr. Wilson’s biography is no exception in this regard although the errors are few. The most egregious error is contained on page 517. Here Mr. Wilson refers to “Ducky,” Princess Victoria Melita, the daughter of Affie, the Duke of Edinburgh as the “sister” of “Alicky” (later the ill-fated Empress Alexandra of Russia) and of “Ella” (Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia). However, Alicky and Ella were daughters of Princess Alice and Grand Duke Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, while Ducky was the daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh and Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna. Ducky was therefore a first cousin to Alicky and Ella and both became her sisters-in-law when Ducky married their brother Grand Duke Ernst of Hesse-Darmstadt.Towards the end of the book Mr. Wilson raises the question as to how a monarch with such an irascible, selfish and difficult personality as Queen Victoria had come to be so loved by her subjects. He does not have an answer for us other than to ascribe the adoring relationship between Victoria and her people to “some weird paradoxical royal magic.” Clearly, Queen Victoria was a much more interesting person than many earlier biographers have portrayed. She was a very assertive personality and apparently possessed a fine sense of humor. She was apparently too a person of great kindliness and had a much greater intelligence than many have hitherto suspected. The paradox of Queen Victoria is that she was not a good monarch in the sense we would understand today, but yet somehow she attracted the deepest devotion from her subjects and remains a fascinating character to this very day when other more conventional royal women such as Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary are nowadays rarely written or thought about.I think this book might be difficult for readers who approach the book with little knowledge of Queen Victoria and of her extended family and of the important events in world history that occurred during her long reign. Mr. Wilson jumps around a lot and often refers to people by their titles in one place and by their first names in others. However, for anyone with an interest in the Queen this book is a treasure trove of information and I highly recommend it.