WE TWO(ISBN=) 英文原版

　　It was the most influential marriage of the nineteenth
century–and one of history’s most enduring love stories.
Traditional biographies tell us that Queen Victoria inherited the
throne as a na?ve teenager, when the British Empire was at the
height of its power, and seemed doomed to find failure as a monarch
and misery as a woman until she married her German cousin Albert
and accepted him as her lord and master. Now renowned chronicler
Gillian Gill turns this familiar story on its head, revealing a
strong, feisty queen and a brilliant, fragile prince working
together to build a family based on support, trust, and fidelity,
qualities neither had seen much of as children. The love affair
that emerges is far more captivating, complex, and relevant than
that depicted in any previous account.
　　The epic relationship began poorly. The cousins first met as
teenagers for a few brief, awkward, chaperoned weeks in 1836. At
seventeen, charming rather than beautiful, Victoria already “showed
signs of wanting her own way.” Albert, the boy who had been groomed
for her since birth, was chubby, self-absorbed, and showed no
interest in girls, let alone this princess. So when they met again
in 1839 as queen and presumed prince-consort-to-be, neither had
particularly high hopes. But the queen was delighted to discover a
grown man, refined, accomplished, and whiskered. “Albert is
beautiful!” Victoria wrote, and she proposed just three days
later.
　　As Gill reveals, Victoria and Albert entered their marriage
longing for intimate companionship, yet each was determined to be
the ruler. This dynamic would continue through the years–each
spouse, headstrong and impassioned, eager to lead the marriage on
his or her own terms. For two decades, Victoria and Albert engaged
in a very public contest for dominance. Against all odds, the
marriage succeeded, but it was always a work in progress. And in
the end, it was Albert’s early death that set the Queen free to
create the myth of her marriage as a peaceful idyll and her husband
as Galahad, pure and perfect.
　　As Gill shows, the marriage of Victoria and Albert was great not
because it was perfect but because it was passionate and
complicated. Wonderfully nuanced, surprising, often acerbic–and
informed by revealing excerpts from the pair’s journals and
letters–We Two is a revolutionary portrait of a queen and her
prince, a fascinating modern perspective on a couple who have
become a legend.
　　From the Hardcover edition.