The LAST PRINCESS: The Devoted Life of Queen Victoria's Youngest Daughter.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE+/FINE.Neat, black ink previous owner name (possibly Rosie?) towards the top,right-hand corner of ffe,and no price-clip (£20.00) to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean,colour portrait painting of Queen Victoria and a young Princess Beatrice (National Portrait Gallery,London) with white+yellow letters,front panel of dw/dj, contemporary b/w portrait photographic rear panel of dw/dj.Negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present - both head+foot of dw/dj's spine/backstrip minimally bumped with reciprocal creasing.Top+fore-edges very lightly aged but still bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - possibly unread.Bright,crisp, clean,sharp-cornered,publisher's original,plain black cloth bds with bright,crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip near immaculate plain white pastedowns and b/w decorated free endpapers (a Jubilee Genealogical Tree,showing the descendants of Her Majesty Queen Victoria).UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,vii-xpp+1-302pp [paginated] includes contents+illus lists/tables,28 chapters,16pp contemporary b/w+colour illustrations and contemporary familial b/w+colour portrait plates+ photographs; in 2 blocks of 8pp apiece,between pp110/11 and pp206/7 respectively,notes,a bibliography and an index.Plus [unpaginated]; half-title+title pages,dedication,author's note,4pp of 4 family trees and a poetry extract/quotation.
The youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was a daughter, Beatrice,'the last princess'.She hardly knew her father,who died when she was only four.But his shadow,and that of her mother's titanic grief, coloured the remainder of Beatrice's long life.When the Prince died, Queen Victoria turned to her youngest daughter for comfort and distraction.In time she came to rely on Beatrice absolutely,while also demanding her complete submission.It is an enthralling story,not just of a mother-daughter relationship but that of a monarch and her favourite subject.Queen Victoria was not above behaving regally towards her own children.She regarded Beatrice as both companion and secretary,and entrusted to her the task of editing and bowdlerising the many volumes of her Journal after her death - a charge that occupied Beatrice for over thirty years.
Happily,Beatrice inherited some of her mother's steely qualities.Despite Queen Victoria's determination to prevent her daughter so much as thinking of love,her guard eventually slipped and,at twenty-eight,Beatrice was allowed to marry handsome Henry of Battenberg.As Dennison puts it,hers was a 'hard-won victory of love over family prejudice,political reluctance and,most significantly,the Queen's opposition'.
Like her mother Beatrice was a carrier of haemophilia.
One of her three sons was haemophiliac,and her daughter,Victoria Eugenie,in marrying Alfonso XIII of Spain,transmitted the gene to the Spanish royal family with catastrophic results.
But Beatrice was more than daughter,wife and mother.She wrote music, painted,and published two volumes of translation.Dennison's impressive debut as a biographer draws on extensive new material to restore Princess Beatrice to her rightful place as a key figure in the Victorian dynasty.
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