Books: Victoriana

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Susan Mary Alsop provides a vivid if rather breathless account of Victoria's remarkable life, dwelling at considerable length on her subject's wardrobe and taste in furniture. The widow of an American diplomat in Paris, now the ex-wife of Columnist Joseph Alsop, the author displays a knowing familiarity with social protocol. "There is always in Washington a certain tension between the French and British embassies, disguised but real," she remarks aà propos of nothing. Mrs. Alsop applauds her subject's casual attitude toward bathroom linen; after all, she remarks, "an efficient maid would have been on duty." She also appears to have been overly influenced by Victoria's exclamation, "Quel roman est ma vie!" (My life is just like a novel!). In the absence of evidence, the biographer has a disconcerting habit of inventing scenes. "One can imagine," she often conjectures; yes, but did it happen?

Still, she writes with style and verve, and her narrative of the trials that dominated Lady Sackville's life is masterly. Victoria's brother Henry sued to inherit Knole, upon which the scandal of the Sackvilie children's illegitimacy emerged in court; then the family of Sir John Murray Scott, a platonic lover of Victoria's who bequeathed her a considerable for tune, challenged his will, and her private life again became a public issue. Portrait of a Marriage touched upon these causes celebres; the Alsop biography recounts them with an effervescence reminiscent of Lady Sackvilie herself in those innocent days before she became the tyrant of Knole.

James Atlas