Sample from a journal page in Queen Victoria’s handwriting
Queen Victoria’s Journals is a website which reproduces every page of the surviving volumes of Queen Victoria’s journals (including draft volumes and copies made by Lord Esher and Princess Beatrice). It provides full transcriptions and keyword searching of the journal entries covering the period from Queen Victoria’s first diary entry in July 1832 to 13 January 1901. In total 141 volumes of her journal survive, numbering 43,765 pages.
As well as detailing household and family matters, the journals reflect affairs of state, describe meetings with statesmen and other eminent figures, and comment on the literature of the day. They represent a valuable primary source for scholars of nineteenth century British political and social history and for those working on gender and autobiographical writing.
Queen Victoria’s sketch of the children
This website reproduces as high-resolution colour images, every page of the surviving volumes of Queen Victoria’s journals, along with separate photographs of the many illustrations and inserts within the pages.
Each page is also being meticulously transcribed and re-keyed, allowing for journals to be searched. At the time of launch, only a portion of the transcribed text will be available. More transcriptions are being added regularly as the project progresses.
The project to digitize Queen Victoria’s Journals has been undertaken in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, the Royal Archives, London and Proquest. The release of Queen Victoria’s Journals has been timed to coincide with the celebrations to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II – the only British Monarch other than Queen Victoria to have reigned for 60 years.
The Queen Victoria’s Journals website is mobile-compliant and can be viewed from all iPhones, Blackberry and Android phones. The website is supported by a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/queenvictoriasjournals and Twitter at @QueenVictoriaRI.
Oxford users: it will shortly be added to OxLIP+.
Related websites:
Bodleian Libraries news: HM the Queen launches online resource of all Queen Victoria’s Journals
BBC: Diamond Jubilee: Queen Victoria’s diaries go online (with little video clip)
The Independent: Queen Victoria’s diaries to go online
The Guardian: Queen Victoria’s private journals published online
