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Title: The Last Days of Glory : The Death of Queen Victoria by Tony Rennell ISBN: 0-312-27672-9 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 25 September, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.71 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting insight into Victorian society
Comment: A surprisingly entertaining book. Surprisingly because Rennell writes quite a dry book, not sensationalising the story of Victoria's death, or attempting to get too personal. Rather, he takes the reader through Victoria's last days, her death and the funeral, relating aspects from the point of view of those close to Victoria and the press. He never directly writes political analysis, but rather hints at it, only occasionally drawing parallels with the modern British monarchy. By taking one small episode - lasting only a year really - Rennell manages to explore various facets of Victorian life and it's legacy.
The most striking point in this book is the fact that no-one seemed prepared for Queen Victoria's death, which is amazing considering the woman was in her eighties! But it also entertainingly covers the small facts - the internal squabbles within the large and extended royal family; the fact the Queen was a bit of a glutton until her final illness; the boy who flicked a match and set fire to a man's hat while the public watched the funeral procession move through London. Rennell manages to steer a course between the academic and the 'dumbing down' sometimes prevalent in modern day 'popular history'. Rather, he just sticks to the facts and supposes his readers are intelligent enough to understand and interpret them.
Rating: 5
Summary: A glorious effort...
Comment: When I first saw that this book was published, I was skeptical that enough information could be gathered about Queen Victoria's death to make for interesting reading. Was I wrong! The Last Days of Glory: The Death of Queen Victoria by Tony Rennell contains not just lots of interesting information, but also all the high drama required of a good Victorian novel. The cast of characters is unbelievable. They include: 1. a robust queen whose rapidly failing health is kept from her public until the last minute 2. a reluctant heir who would rather go fox hunting and spend time with his mistresses than attend his mother's deathbed or assume the throne 3. a passel of children and grandchildren who hover about and argue with each other 4. an obnoxious, arrogant and overbearing grandson (Kaiser William II) trying to make nice with his British cousins (who all loathe him) while trying to muscle his way into the death scene 5. a personal doctor who is second guessed at every opportunity, is never allowed to physically examine the queen and who serves as a spy to the Kaiser 6. a bishop who tries to interject too much "churchiness" into the death scene and is finally asked to leave 7. a head dresser who has promised the queen to sneak a large number of objects and mementos into the queen's coffin (without her family's knowledge) including several from the queen's devoted Scottish servant, John Brown (also rumored to be her secret husband) 8. a large number of heads of state who scheme and plot and politic against each other at the funeral, even though most of them are related to each other 9. an Empire of British subjects who have never known another sovereign and 10. a large group of faithful but bumbling government officials who have no clue how to bury the old monarch or install the new one because they haven't had to worry about such things for over 63 years.
Add to this story a lost effigy for the burial sarcophagus and over 100 daily newspapers scrapping for every little tidbit of information, and you have a saga most fiction writers could only dream about. To make the story even more interesting, we learn about the changes in the Empire and the world during the course of Victoria's reign. Telegrams have revolutionized communication, telephones are in their infancy, and no one really believes that the new horseless carraiges will become popular because they're too expensive. Queen Victoria's death takes place at the dawn of a new millennium, so the end of the 19th Century and the end of the Victorian Era occur together. Also, the British Empire will never again be as great or as grand as it was during Victoria's reign. It all makes for fascinating reading.
The only flaw I could find in The Last Dayas of Glory involved a historical fact. The Russian Tsar and Tsarina, Nicholas and Alexandra (Victoria's favorite granddaughter) got married after Nicholas became tsar and not before. But other than this minor error, I find no fault here. Tony Rennell's book is a nice surprise and well worth reading.
Rating: 5
Summary: Tells of a watershed event, now almost forgotten.
Comment: Few of us will ever forget the events of September 11, where we were, how the nation reacted. Tony Rennell tells us of another earthshattering event, for its time, the death of Queen Victoria.
Beginning a few days before the Queen's death, Rennell proceeds slowly through her final illness, providing enough background to satisfy us without boring us. After the Queen passes, he gives us ample reaction to the death, even printing (rather pompous by today's standards) poems and songs written at the time (interesting to compare them with the songs written after September 11). He brings us through the funeral and burial at Windsor.
Rennell tells us what was not widely known before--that Victoria was buried holding a picture of John Brown and a locket with his hair, and wearing a ring he had given her. He is careful to put this in the proper context, devoting an appendix to setting forth his view that Brown and the Queen had an entirely proper, though unconventional, relationship.
Rennell puts the event in historical perspective--the conflict between those who wanted a "proper" amount of mourning, and those who wanted to move on quickly, reopen the theaters, put off mourning dress. I wonder how long it has been since the general public wore mourning for a monarch, and if there will be any expectation that it be done next time. Yet in 1901, the period of public mourning was shortened to "only" six weeks!
This book was published before 9/11, but I wonder, if, in 2101, a similar book will be published to remind the public of our watershed event.
Well worth reading.
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Title: Queen Victoria's Gene by D. M. Potts, W. T. W. Potts ISBN: 0750911999 Publisher: Sutton Publishing Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Victoria's Daughters by Jerrold M. Packard ISBN: 0312244967 Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback Pub. Date: December, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The King in Love: Edwards Vii's Mistresses: Lillie, Langtry, Daisy Warwick, Alice Keppel and Others by Theo Aronson ISBN: 0060160330 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: January, 1989 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: An UNCOMMON WOMAN by Hannah Pakula ISBN: 0684842165 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 13 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Uncrowned King : The Life of Prince Albert by Stanley Weintraub ISBN: 0743206096 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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