She ruled the largest empire in the world and reigned for longer than any English monarch before or - so far - since. Yet today, people best remember the century named after her, rather than the real person behind the dour facade of Queen Victoria.
The common assumption is that she was a mere figurehead who viewed her vast domain from a regal distance, while politicians like Disraeli, Gladstone and Palmerston carved up the world fighting over their share of the colonial cake with other European powers.
Carolly Erickson makes it clear this is hardly fair. From a dynastic point of view Victoria saved the British monarchy, inheriting the throne from a dissolute and childless uncle, William IV, who managed, along with his predecessor George IV, to turn many Britons into abolitionists.
Indeed, at the time of her coronation at the age of 18 in February 1838, the monarchy was teetering on the edge of an abyss.
For Victoria her ascendancy was both a burden and a release: a burden of ruling for one so young and yet a chance to free herself from the apron strings of her domineering mother, the Duchess of Kent. Her father died when she was eight months old but the German duchess lived on, spending money she did not have and forcing the family to live in genteel poverty in a crumbling palace.
Victoria later recalled: 'I had led a very unhappy life as a child, I had no scope for my very violent feelings of affection.' She was fortunate to be guided by a wise prime minister, Lord Melbourne, on whom she came to depend as both adviser and father figure.