Victoria and Disraeli: The making of a romantic partnership

It was an extraordinary relationship between Queen and Prime Minister — this intimacy between the dowdy, unsmiling Widow of Windsor and the flamboyant, honey-tongued politician whom, in earlier days, Victoria had condemned as 'unprincipled, reckless and not respectable'.

By the 1870s this seemingly incompatible couple were hand in glove. But they were not so very different. Both needed the intimate support of someone of the opposite sex, and both were lost when their beloved spouses died. Brought close to the Queen by his part in the government of the country and by their mutual sympathy, Disraeli instinctively discerned the streak of romance that lay hidden behind Victoria's stern exterior and coaxed it into response.

This latest book by Theo Aronson in his series about the European royal houses of the nineteenth-century is a new departure. Here the author deals not with relationships confined within royal circles, but with that rarer phenomenon — the relationship between a queen and a commoner, whose story, moreover, is as bizarre and romantic as that of many a novel.

‘A sensitive and stylish account of their relationship … skilfully and sympathetically described. Aronson has produced an illuminating and entertaining book’ - Observer

‘Theo Aronson has given the best impression of the Queen that I have read. With much subtlety – and dead-pan humour – he has used her relationship with Disraeli to give us an insight into what she was really like. His book is bright with intelligence and human wisdom. Very strongly recommended’ - C. P. Snow, Financial Times

Theo Aronson is the author of over twenty works of royal historical biography, published in eleven languages. Among the widely read are Grandmama of Europe, The King in Love, Napoleon and Josephine and a biography of Princess Margaret. In the course of researching and writing these books he has interviewed major and minor members of Britain's royal family and members of the royal households, as well as various officials, servants, friends and others whose lives are in some way connected with the monarchy.