Queen Victoria and The Romanovs: Sixty Years of Mutual Distrust

There is a wealth of material and information that I've seen nowhere else (and I've read everything. :-) ) From her first dance with the handsome Grand Duke to the rest of her life and reign, the book captures both nuances and big pictures. Marie, Duchess of Edinburgh, is nearly always overlooked in biographies, but she has a major role in this book. Daughter and sister of a tsar, she was a Grand Duchess at home. In England, she resented the "step down" to be a mere duchess (and behind Victoria's daughters) in seniority. Information on the courtship of Nicholas and Alexandra is interesting but mostly familiar; however Alexandra's sister, Ella, had a fascinating journey through marriage to a Grand Duke, an emotionally distant spouse; her deeply spiritual life and founding of a religious order of nuns; and her tragic death at the revolution. All of this is told in the context of Victoria's relationship to her family and their Russian connections. A great read!

Surprisingly fascinating. I couldnt stop reading it. Although the author stops with Victoria's death and doesn't speculate on how her distrust of the Russians may have passed down to her grandson George V and influenced him not to try to rescue his cousins and their children. Also the author seems to imply Victoria understood the hemophilia she had brought into the family and other things I have read said she simply did not, commenting once (when another grandson died) that she didn't understand why her family members were so prone to the disease. If as the author states doctors at the time were aware of the hereditary nature of the disease but royal families were not, it's interesting to speculate how world and especially European history would be different if they had.

I enjoyed the way the author explained the family dynamic from Queen Victoria's involvement. I just finished reading two other books about Victoria's interest with the marriages of her daughters and grandchildren. Amazing how the marriages of cousins and other royality of Russia and German background was the priority dictated by Albert's desire to keep peace with neighboring countries. I would recommend the book to anyone who loves reading about the Royal English family.

Wonderful insight into the family relationships between the Windsors and the Romanovs. Extremely insightful and intriguing. Well worth the read!

I really enjoyed this book and Queen Victoria a very interesting lady. It certainly makes me happy that I have no royal blood. Arranged marriages! How crazy is that? And if any 2 people should not have married, it would be 99% of all the royal families! But an interesting read.

Read this book late July 2021. Found it to be interesting and informative as I enjoy reading historical novels. Gave meAn insight to the Romanov family

I bought this book based on the sterling reviews, thinking it would give me an analysis of the English and Russian royal families and how they affected relations between those two nations. Disappointingly, the book is essentially a summary of Queen Victoria's diary with some (but not much) emphasis on the Romanovs. If you want to know what Victoria's descriptions were of the physical appearances of the people who entered her world, which uniforms her Romanov visitors wore on which days, where she sat at the dinner table with them, what china was used at the dinner, who danced which dances after dinner, how large the crowds were at Ascot, whom she visited on various trips abroad, etc., then this is the book for you. If you want any real insight into relations between England and Russia during Victoria's reign, you need to pass on this one. I gave up after reading through the Crimean War, which was just a passing bump in the road in this book.

Excellent background and understanding that convincingly weaves Victoria’s personal & political approach to her family, not just with the Romanovs but other European familial connections.

A fascinating book, detailing the ambivalent relationship Queen Victoria had with the Russian royal family over the sixty years of her reign. The wealth of superbly researched detail - a lot of it taken from Victoria's own diaries - paints a fascinating portrait of European royalty during this period, which was liberally populated with Victoria's children and grandchildren. One of her sons married into the Romanovs, as did two of her granddaughters. A succession of reigning Tsars and other members of the Russian royal family came to England to visit Victoria during the years of her reign, some of whom found favour with her while others did not. As with Coryne Hall's other books, this is beautifully written and I would recommend it to anyone with even a vague interest in Queen Victoria or the Romanovs, or indeed European royalty in general.

This is an excellent book. I could not put it down

What a ridiculous question!