This latest book from John Van der Kiste, the eminent historian of European royalty, is an account of Queen Victoria s personal and political relationships with the empires, or to be more exact, the Kings and Queens, Emperors, Empresses and their families of France, Germany, Austria and Russia. Victoria had close connections with the royal houses of Germany long before the King of Prussia became the German Emperor in 1871, and with the exiled former Emperor and Empress of the French and their son, the Prince Imperial, after the fall of the French Empire in 1870. Van der Kiste deftly weaves together the various strands of the relationships including the close family marriage ties to provide a fascinating picture of European royalty in the last two thirds of the nineteenth century."