When Queen Victoria died in 1901, she had ruled for nearly 64 years as monarch of Great Britain and the matriarch of royal Europe through her children's marriages. To many, Queen Victoria is a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, a stiff old lady paraded as a figurehead, but as the author of The Book of the People suggests here, she was one of the most passionate, humorous, and unconventional leaders who ever lived. A.N. Wilson explores Victoria's isolated childhood and the curious set of circumstances that led to her coronation, and examines her marriage to Prince Albert, her widowhood, and Victoria's intimate friendship with her Highland servant John Brown, all set against the backdrop of this momentous epoch in Britain's history.