Queen Victorias Matchmaking, Deborah Cadbury
Queen Victorias Matchmaking, Deborah Cadbury
List: $31.99 | Sale: $22.40
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Queen Victoria's Matchmaking
The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe

Author: Deborah Cadbury

Narrator: Charlotte Strevens

Unabridged: 13 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 04/24/2018

Synopsis

A captivating exploration of the role in which Queen Victoria exerted the most international power and influence: as a matchmaking grandmother.
As her reign approached its sixth decade, Queen Victoria's grandchildren numbered over thirty, and to maintain and increase British royal power, she was determined to maneuver them into a series of dynastic marriages with the royal houses of Europe.
Yet for all their apparent obedience, her grandchildren often had plans of their own, fueled by strong wills and romantic hearts. Victoria's matchmaking plans were further complicated by the tumultuous international upheavals of the time: revolution and war were in the air, and kings and queens, princes and princesses were vulnerable targets.
Queen Victoria's Matchmaking travels through the glittering, decadent palaces of Europe from London to Saint Petersburg, weaving in scandals, political machinations and family tensions to enthralling effect. It is at once an intimate portrait of a royal family and an examination of the conflict caused by the marriages the Queen arranged. At the heart of it all is Victoria herself: doting grandmother one moment, determined Queen Empress the next.

About Deborah Cadbury

Deborah Cadbury is an award-winning TV producer for the BBC, including Horizon for which she won an Emmy. She is also the author of numerous acclaimed books, including The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, for which the accompanying series received a BAFTA nomination for Best Series, The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World, The Lost King of France: Revolution, Revenge and the Search for Louis XVII, Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers, and Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet Union for Dominion of Space. Deborah lives in London.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Suzannah Rowntree on June 10, 2018

I can't remember the last time I had so much fun reading a nonfiction book (most of the history I read these days is at a more academic level than this book). This book was absolutely gripping. Though written for a popular audience, the author shows impressive research on her subject, drawing from u......more

Goodreads review by Jill on November 26, 2017

Queen Victoria - Britain's second-longest reigning monarch - died on January 22, 1901. She'd been a widow since December, 1861 and had worn widows-weeds ever since, mourning her beloved husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Gotha. They had had nine children. At the time of her death, Victoria had 20 some-o......more

Goodreads review by Shawn on March 06, 2019

The title, and I assume Cadbury's premise, says that Queen Victoria was busy "matchmaking" for her children and grandchildren. But matchmaking in Cadbury's book seems to consist of QV mostly writing letters that say "No" and "Don't marry this Russian." Perhaps the book should have been called "Datin......more

Goodreads review by Carolyn on January 21, 2018

Queen Victoria's Matchmaking is an absorbing read about a fascinating family! I enjoyed Princes at War by Deborah Cadbury and looked forward to reading about Queen Victoria's efforts to arrange marriages for her children and grandchildren among Europe's royal houses. I especially enjoyed the first t......more

Goodreads review by Jordy on September 11, 2023

Fascinerend en tegelijkertijd enigszins kleurloos geschreven. De invloed van koningin Victoria op de huwelijkskeuzes van haar familieleden is zeker een interessant onderwerp om een boek over te schrijven en de auteur heeft zich goed ingelezen in beschikbare werken over het onderwerp. Samen met uitle......more

Quotes

Wonderfully compelling and packed with new material - a gripping story beautifully told.—Jane Ridley

In this enjoyable story for fans of royal machinations, Cadbury ably shows not just the successes, but also the damage inflicted by Victoria's single-mindedness. An instructive European history that effectively shows 'the influence of [Victoria's] matchmaking on the remarkable rise of the royal dynasty'.—Kirkus Reviews

[An] absorbing book... The fall of the Romanovs occupies the superb last pages of Cadbury's book... Dynastic mergers, we may deduce from Deborah Cadbury's account, offer no defence against the whims of history. This catastrophe-laced slice of royal history offers a ripping read.—Miranda Seymour, The Observer

Engrossing...Cadbury engagingly presents [Queen Victoria] as a mesmerising Mrs Bennet, summoning her children and then her grandchildren to Balmoral. ..The stories of [Queen Victoria's] descendants are mesmerising and often stranger than fiction...From the pen of a writer of skill and style, this surprising narrative leaves you wanting more.—Paula Byrne, TheTimes

Cadbury's account of Victoria's attempts to bend her unruly grandchildren to her matrimonial will is the stuff of melodrama...covered with verve and insight by Deborah Cadbury in her new history.—Daisy Goodwin, TheSunday Times

Deborah Cadbury is an adroit story teller. Her lively colourfully written book...begins in the 1880s and ends in the toppling thrones of the First World War, a panoramic family saga, its players by turns pragmatic and romantic, wilful, dutiful, misguided and, occasionally tragic—Matthew Dennison, TheDaily Telegraph

"A rich history of Queen Victoria's canny use of political power."—Bookpage

"Ms. Cadbury stresses the human element of her story, not least the wayward personalities and unforeseen family rivalries that thwarted Victoria's designs as a monarch and matriarch... Many vivid pen portraits."—William Anthony Hay, Wall Street Journal

"Fantastic...In lively and page-turning prose, author Deborah "Chocolate Wars" Cadbury confirms her place as a leading historian of Britain as she pulls Queen Victoria out of caricature and into our hearts."—Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor

"Queen Victoria's Matchmaking is a look at royalty when it still had a somewhat mystical aura-these people who were both the state and their own particular selves-and a fascinating angle on a time of ferment, when the wheels were finally, permanently coming off this way of running nations...Forget The Crown-what I really want is a Netflix show based on all these royal grandchildren."
—Kelly Faircloth, Pictorial

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