Queen Victoria's Library: The Place of Reading and Writing in Victoria's Political Education, Self-Improvement, and Self-Curation

This PhD explores Queen Victoria as a reader, drawing on unused or underutilised sources to form an understanding of how her reading was a tool for self-curation, self-improvement and political education. As a constant feature of Victoria's life, this thesis focuses on four themes drawn from the corpus of material available, such as analysing her reading practice, marginalia, correspondence, journals and extant books. Firstly, Victoria's childhood and adolescence was heavily influenced by her reading, and a reassessment of this period through this lens allows for a clearer sense of her developing interests, in turn restoring some agency to her as a Princess. Secondly, across the first three decades of her reign, against the backdrop of expanding and changing media, Victoria's engagement with contemporary political affairs through reading is explored through three case-studies: the abolition of slavery (1838-9), the French Revolution (1847-8) and the Indian Rebellion (1857-8). Thirdly, the almost ubiquitous image of Victoria as a mourner is re-analysed through reading, highlighting her desire to improve her intellect despite her grief, as well as seeking consolation in literature. Fourthly, Victoria's awareness of her own importance to British and royal history is strongly demonstrated through her reading and writing, through which she followed the thread of history from before her life, passed it through herself, and projected it onto the future.
This project is in collaboration with Historic Royal Palaces, which supports this research by including aspects of it in the permanent exhibition Victoria: A Royal Childhood at Kensington Palace.