Censoring Queen Victoria:  How Two Gentlemen Edited A Queen And Created An Icon, by Yvonne M. Ward

This book was a deeply interesting one because it raises some fascinating questions about the nature of censorship and the various motives that are involved in it.  This book focuses on one particular example of censorship and examines the context of that censorship, who was responsible for it, what was censored and why, and what the result of that censorship was.  Each of these questions and their answer is fascinating, and the author managed while she was doing all of this to deal with some more topical issues for contemporaries regarding questions of gender and sexuality and class, all of which are of interest in this particular story and all of which help explain the nature of the censorship and the early examples of the gay mafia that managed to inveigle themselves in such questions about controlling the narrative of history by shaping what was known by the public about Queen Victoria.  And knowing what is commonly known about Queen Victoria and why is the sort of question that one can ask about a great many other people as well, making this sort of book profitable for others to read in hopes of creating their own volume in this genre.

This book of between 150 and 200 pages is divided into two parts and 11 chapters.  After a preface the author spends the first part of the book talking about the editors responsible for publishing the expurgated version of Queen Victoria’s voluminous correspondence that is most known to readers and researchers (I).  This part of the book includes the effort to publish Victoria’s letters in an accessible format (two or three volumes) (1), as well as the biographies of the two closeted gay gentlemen, one noble and the other gentry, who were responsible for the project, the second Viscount Esher (2) and A.C. Benson (3).  After that the author discusses the preparing of the king and publishers for the project (4) and what went into the editing (5).  The second part of the book discusses what aspects of the Queen’s life attracted the most attention from the editors/censors (II), namely Sir John Conroy and Lady Flora (6), King Leopold and his intrusive advise (7), Prince Albert, a welcome foreigner and strong husband (8), various aspects of women’s business like childbirth and Victoria’s not very prim nature (9), the queen’s relationships with her ministers (10), as well as the dicey relationship that the project had with the English king (11).  After a conclusion that discusses the way the censors shaped the reputation of the Queen, the book ends with the usual acknowledgements, notes, and index.

There were a lot of aspects about this book that were deeply fascinating, including the way that the authors had such mixed motives in wanting to provide an exciting enough book that it would sell while being careful to avoid offending the sensibilities of the king, other relatives who had burned letters already and considered themselves royal censors, or people whose descendants were alive.  The scope of the letters of Victoria published was reduced to the point where it only included letters written up until the death of Prince Albert in 1861 and avoiding any discussion that showed Victoria to be anything other than a proper woman who did not busy herself with questions of sex or pregnancies, even though she spent most of time as a married woman before her husband’s death pregnant with a large brood of children and came from a fertile family that had to deal with the usual layings in or miscarriages that resulted from such high fertility.  If the author’s discussion about sexuality was more than a bit uncomfortable, this book certainly reveals a great deal about elite politics when it comes to how rulers are presented in the publishing of their personal letters.