Based on the letters and diaries of six members of Queen Victoria's household, Serving Victoria offers unique insight into the queen and her court. Seen through the eyes of her servants--including the governess to the royal children, her maid of honor, her chaplain, and her personal physician--Victoria emerges as more vulnerable, more emotional, more selfish, more comical than the austere figure depicted in her portraits.

We see a woman prone to fits of giggles, who wept easily and often, who shrank from confrontation yet insisted on controlling the lives of those around...