1 Background of the Succession to the Throne
2 Childhood
3rd Melbourne
4 Married Life
5 Lord Palmerston
6 The Queen's Last Years
7. Widowhood
8 Lord Gladstone and Beckensfield
9 Old age
10 Conclusion

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References

Rewritten by a 20th century master
Queen Victoria, an icon of the 19th century

Meet Queen Victoria, the indomitable icon who represented an era in Britain, through the writings of Lytton Strachey, a master of biographical literature.
Return Strachey is a master who is evaluated to have opened a new chapter in biographical literature. He rejected the monotony of biographies and discovered new aspects of historical figures that had not been highlighted before.
The queen he resurrected is a far cry from the monarch who commanded the vast Commonwealth, the very figure who embodied Britain, the "nation on which the sun never sets."
Although she was at the center of a great historical upheaval, she herself was very conservative, and although she was given the title of Empress and was revered as the greatest king in history, she actually had very little power, and rather than sitting on the throne with a solemn expression, she would occasionally swear and explode with emotion.
She was also a 'female' monarch in an era when the highly revolutionary topic of women's suffrage was emerging, but she hated the new voices of women and chose to remain a woman her entire life.

So what made Queen Victoria queen? To find out, Strachey brings together the queen and seven people she either passionately loved or fiercely hated.
They are the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent, her governess, Letzen, her husband, Prince Albert, and the political allies or nemesis Lords Melbourne, Palmerston, Gladstone, and Beckensfield.
The Duchess of Kent and Letzen shaped Victoria's regal values ​​as a princess and heir to the throne; Prince Albert called Victoria, who enjoyed dancing all night, to her desk, reading lamp, and piles of papers; and Melbourne, Palmerston, Gladstone, and Beckensfield, who sometimes contested and sometimes joined forces with the stubborn and willful Queen to overcome national difficulties.
Their secret and passionate relationship with the Queen, both publicly and privately, unfolds across the genres of history, politics, and romance, and together with Victoria herself, they create the 'Queen Victoria' beloved by the British people, and eventually create the era that came to be called the 'Victorian Age'.

But Victoria was not simply a made-up queen.
On the one hand, Strachey illuminates Queen Victoria's 'truthfulness'.
Victoria, a child of exceptional honesty, maintained that honesty until her death, always revealing her feelings to her family, politicians, and the public without hiding anything.
In that respect, Victoria was a rare politician, and even a human being of rare virtue.
Victoria's love, her hatred, her sorrow, her pride as a monarch and even her sometimes incomprehensible stubbornness were all clearly revealed to all, and although this brought about several crises and conflicts during her reign, it ultimately made the public sympathize with her and love her deeply.
Despite Strachey's unvarnished description of the queen's comical aspects and limitations—her protruding mouth and stubbornness, her unmonarchical gait and overly emotional demeanor, her meager intellect and imperialistic mindset—we come to understand why Britain loved and revered Queen Victoria so much.

A new historical writing―
The name 'Return Strachey'

Lytton Strachey, author of "The Queen's Lovers," was born in the late 19th century and spent his early 20th century in London, where he encountered Virginia Woolf, E.
He discussed philosophy and art with M. Foster, John Keynes, and others, and they formed the London intellectual group 'Bloomsbury Group', which later had an indispensable influence on art and academia.
Strachey also created his own biographical style in the new art historical trend of the first half of the 20th century, and played a decisive role in the direction of biographical literature thereafter.
The Guardian once commented on him, saying, “After Lyton Strachey, biographical literature has never been the same again.”


Rather than a chronological list of the achievements of a great man, Strachey has created a compact, yet deeply poignant and humorous biography that is full of insight and compassion into the psychology of the man.
As a result, the characters in Strachey's biographies have become three-dimensional and realistic, with distinct light and shadows, unlike before.
Strachey's characteristic humor also permeates the writing, and Bertrand Russell recalled, "I was reading Strachey's biography in prison and laughed so hard that I had to be warned by the guards."
Strachey's biographical narrative, a mixture of paradox, irony, and exaggeration, is groundbreaking even from a modern perspective, and seems to tread a precarious line between historical truth and fictional imagination.
His humorous writing style, which lightly mocks the norms of biographical literature and, more broadly, historical writing, uses irreverence as a filter and wit as a companion, still provides us with fresh enjoyment today.