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Title: Queen Victoria's Gene by D. M. Potts, W. T. W. Potts ISBN: 0-7509-1199-9 Publisher: Sutton Publishing Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Interesting
Comment: This book was very interesting. It is a story of Genes. It tells the story about Queen Victoria and her family. Two of her daughters, Alice (As well as two daughters and a son), and Beatrice (as well as two sons and a daughter) were carriers of a disease called hemophilia and her son Leopold (As well as a daughter) had the disorder. One might wonder what the mystery is about it. Well it is this, where did the three children get the disorder? Because the daughters were carriers of it they could not have gotten it from there father Albert, so it must have been Victoria. One problem is that supposedly comes from one the most well documented families off all time (The family can trace there lineage to Adam and Eve) that leaves three posiblities-1. That she is not the Granddaughter of King George III 2. Her mother (Victoria of Sax-Coburg) was a carrier-which turned out to be false or 3. There was a spontaneous combustion of the egg or sperm that made Victoria. The authors get into all three of these hypotheses in order to try to understand just how Victoria got the gene for hemophilia. The authors also delve into the lives of the people who had hemophilia and tells about some of the pretenders to the thrones descendent from Queen Victoria and how with the knowledge of the gene people have figured out they are fakes.
Rating: 4
Summary: More about hemophilia and history than scandal
Comment: It's too bad so many reviewers and editors chose to focus on the small part of this book which questions Queen Victoria's legitimacy, because that's not really what this book is about. It's far more about how the interbreeding of British and other European royalty had profound consequences for world history. The bulk of the book traces the competitive sexual politics prior to Victoria's birth, and the way inbreeding among royalty contributed to the spread of the hemophilia gene, causing major world upheaval (in particular, to the fall of the Russian tsar). Much has been written of the privileges of 19th century royalty, but this book brings into sharper focus the way these royals' private behavior had public consequences. An interesting treatise on an aspect of history that is often overlooked: that many European wars were family conflicts extended to a grand scale.
Rating: 3
Summary: Should be called "The Influence of Prince Leopold"
Comment: This book is really partly a discussion on how Victoria passed on a gene for Haemophilia and its immense influence on later European politics, but also hugely influential, and not included in the title, were the overweening ambitions of Leopold in the scheme of European Royalty.
Following his marriage to The heir to the English throne, Princess Charlotte, in 1817 I had thought he had faded out of existence, he was hardly a major player, so to speak, in the scheme of things then. I had forgotten his connection with Queen Victoria's mother, and it was again Leopold's influence which made Prince Albert, Victoria's husband - and then he really got workin on Europe for his relatives - even Brazil and Mexico got Leopold dynastic ambitions during their brief flirtations with the monarchy.
The first chapter is really an introduction of Leopold but it is mainly in this first part that the genetics of Queen Victoria are examined. Where did the gene for Haemophilia arise and why, after generations of pophyria in the royal family (traced back for hundreds of years) was there a sudden stop to this,and rise to a completely new genetic disease. I don't know that the authors really made their point. I thought the discussion was interesting but the conclusions were a bit tenuous. In the end there was no possible candidate for the male haemophiliac who could have been Victoria's father. It is all very well discussion all the possibilities of how a gene might transfer from generation to generation but it would have been more convincing if they could have really put up some candidates - or at least one viable candidate anyway.
The influence of the gene on later generations of European royalty was quite profound and I thought that was presented well by the book. I really enjoyed the chapter by chapter presentation of the gene's movements through other royal families in Europe as well as its still possible presence in the lesser branches of the Spanish Royal family. Each royal family or incident is presented as a single chapter and the ramifications are simply discussed. Certainly the guiding hand of Leopold on each succeeding generation is still very comprehensive.
I wish the authors had used more, or better Family trees though. There were an awful lot of names and relationships to follow and not all were even represented in a family tree at all. Also finding the family trees to refer back to them was pretty awkward at times as they were scattered through the book.
I don't know that this is really an academic book for those that are interested in royal watching. It doesn't present itself as well as it might. The conclusions are often very vague - if there are conclusions at all. However as a start point for a slightly different look at the influence of Victoria, and Leopold on European royalty it is definitely worth dipping in to. I probably would have given it 3 and a half stars rather than 3 given the choice, but it isn't a brilliant book - just interesting.
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Title: The Last Days of Glory : The Death of Queen Victoria by Tony Rennell ISBN: 0312276729 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 25 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Queen Victoria's Children by John Van Der Kiste ISBN: 075093476X Publisher: Sutton Publishing Pub. Date: February, 2004 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Queen Victoria's Family: A Century of Photographs 1840-1940 by Charlotte Zeepvat ISBN: 0750930594 Publisher: Sutton Publishing Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Fatal Passion:, A : The Story of the Uncrowned Last Empress of Russia by michael john sullivan ISBN: 0679424008 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 02 June, 1997 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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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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