Queen Victoria’s Lovers

The young Queen Victoria was a potent sex symbol, attracting outlandish fantasists. She also attracted stalkers and other unwanted attention seekers. The Victorian Press sardonically dubbed such people “Victoria’s lovers.” Victorian psychiatrists labelled them, “erotomaniacs.” Drawing on original and untapped sources this book tells their unexpurgated stories.

It includes the tale of Captain Jonathan Childe of the Royal Horse Guards, who bombarded Victoria with outrageously pornographic love letters. These letters “greatly annoyed” Prince Albert and led to frantic meetings at the highest levels of the British state. They are published here for the first time.

The book also compares Victoria’s Lovers to the modern cult of Diana-mania.

PRAISE FOR FRED VERMOREL

i-D Magazine: “Fred Vermorel is a brilliantly scornful and scathingly funny writer.” -- Toronto Star: “There were some bits that were so sick I had to read them three times.” -- London Review of Books: “Beautiful and worrying.” -- Centre Press, France: “Reads like a thriller.” -- London Evening Standard: “Extraordinary… pornographic.”-- The Spectator: “A deeply shocking book, an outrage, a scandal.”-- Les Nouvelles littéraires: “Absolutely astonishing... a real work of history...”