Leaves From the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, From 1848 to 1861. To Which are Prefixed and Added Extracts From the Same Journal Giving an Account of Earlier Visits to Scotland, and Tours in England and Ireland, and Yachting Excursions.

VICTORIA, Queen.

Item Number: 124162

London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1868.

Early printing of Victoria’s immensely popular book which sold twenty thousand copies, published in the same year as the first edition. Octavo, original green cloth with gilt titles to the spine, illustrated with engravings including tissue-guarded frontispiece. Presentation copy, signed by Queen Victoria on the verso of the front free endpaper, “Victoria R” with an inscription in another hand, “For Francis Clark 2nd January 1871.” The recipient, Francis Clark entered the service of Queen Victoria as High Attendant in 1870. In 1891 he was given the Victoria Faithful Service Medal for 21 years’ service. In good condition.

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she had the additional title of Empress of India. Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover. Victoria wrote an average of 2,500 words a day during her adult life. From July 1832 until just before her death, she kept a detailed journal, which eventually encompassed 122 volumes. After Victoria's death, her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, was appointed her literary executor. Beatrice transcribed and edited the diaries covering Victoria's accession onwards, and burned the originals in the process. After the death of Prince Albert and the beginning of her long period of mourning, Victoria withdrew from public view. But she did not wholly vanish from public life, for she reappeared as an author through her published accounts of the world around Balmoral, her Scottish retreat and the backdrop for her great friendship with John Brown. Acquired by Prince Albert in 1852, the Balmoral Estate became the Royal couple's favorite summer home. Queen Victoria had a pyramid-shaped cairn erected in memory of the Prince on top of Craig Lurachain in 1862, one year after his death in 1861.