Victoria is less about its title figure than the men in her life: how fat they were, how gay they were and how handsome. Wilson’s book, which is so laden with details of war, politics and interior design that whenever he mentioned actual humans I laughed out loud from sheer relief. It’s exciting to see such a noble group of women celebrated all at once, so I would love to say that this tripartite release (from different publishers) is indicative of some feminist trend that signifies widespread interest in the lives of authoritative women. Any of these books, perhaps especially Cooney’s, might aspire to be the next Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff’s best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning 2010 biography of another famous pharaoh. Wilson, about Britain’s long-reigning Queen. And then there’s Victoria: A Life, by A.N. October also brings Isabella: The Warrior Queen, by Kirstin Downey, about the Castilian monarch who, with her husband Ferdinand, bankrolled Christopher Columbus. We hear Hatshepsut speak in The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt, a new biography by Kara Cooney.
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