Queen Victoria Revealed in Her Newly Edited Highland Journals

You are invited to join us for a talk about Queen Victoria's diaries by Margaret Homans, Professor of English and Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale University, Joanna Marschner, Senior Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, and Adrienne Munich, Professor Emerita of English, Cultural, and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University, editors for Oxford World's Classics' Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands and More Leaves.

When Queen Victoria had the idea of privately publishing extracts from her diaries, she wanted to reveal her character to those closest to her. She quickly envisioned an edition to be shared throughout her empire and beyond. Best sellers and never out of print, the published volumes, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands and More Leaves, are being newly edited for Oxford World's Classics. Co-editors Homans, Marschner, and Munich uncovered aspects of the publication and its importance to imperial history that heretofore were either ignored or unknown. Queen Victoria's genuine identification with her Highland subjects and her canny publication of that bond served to unite her with a realm that had not seen the Queen's body or heard her voice since the death of her beloved husband. The editors will chart the development of these unique publications, show examples of Victoria as an artist and an art collector, and consider the royal couple's contribution to the creation of the myth of the Highlands.