In De-la-Noy"s portrait of Queen Victoria, it is the way she combined decorum and dignity with a genuine love of home life that he examines. Using anecdotes and extracts from letters and diaries, he gives readers an insight into daily life in the houses the Queen inhabited or built: Kensington Palace, where she was born; Buckingham Palace, where she was the first monarch to live; Windsor Castle; the exotic Royal Pavilion in Brighton - superseded in her regard by Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, where she died; and Balmoral Castle, the home she loved best. Along the way the reader learns of Victoria and Albert"s close attention to domestic economy, her love of riding, of theatre and music and her reactions to the arrival of water closets and lifts, telephones and typewriters.