Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #960791 in Books
• Published on: 1992-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 285 pages

Customer Reviews

Fine biography of a forgotten woman
All of Queen Victoria's children were facinating (to me, anyway) but Alice was the most tragic. Her life was too short and she lost two of her children before her own death at 35. She was a carrier of hemophaelia and her own health was not good. Yet she accomplished a great deal for her husband's royal dukedom. This book is well-written; Mr. Noel is such a sympathetic biographer, without being too sentimental or unobjective. Anyone who reads this book will come away with a real appreciation for Alice's achievements and character, and also, understand a little more of the background of her daughter Alix (the last Tsarina of Russia). Highly recommended!

an honest and admirable woman
Each of Queen Victoria's nine children had distinct personalities. Alice, the third child and second daughter, was what we today would call a born carer. While the first two children, Victoria (the Empress Frederick) and Albert (Edward VII), were born for royal roles, the younger offspring managed to carve out their own paths in life while still being every bit the Queen's children. In this biography, the author shows how Alice set the standard for her five younger siblings and indeed for younger royals up to this day.

The book's highest praise for Alice comes in describing how she tirelessly nursed and watched over her mother night and day following the death of Prince Albert. The author credits Alice with preventing Victoria from slipping into complete and irreversible insanity or even death. This should not be viewed as simple trivia; had Victoria died in 1861, which would have caused the then-immature Bertie to ascend to the throne at 20, European history could have been quite different. Thanks to Alice, 1861 marked the halfway point of Victoria's life, not the end.

Alice will forever be known as one of history's great what-ifs: her heartbreaking death at 35 (she kissed her son, who was suffering from diptheria, to comfort him, and thereby caught the disease herself) deeply affected all of her children, including her six-year-old daughter Alix, "Sunny", who in her adulthood became Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia. Wondering how Alix - and history - would have turned out differently had Alice not succumbed to an early death is one of the things that makes Victoria's children so intriguing to this day.