A review by louanges
The Adventures of Alice Laselles by Queen Victoria

I went into this fully ready to be shocked and impressed by Victoria’s artistic ability (the cover says she was both writer and illustrator). I emphatically was, at first, until I realised it was actually illustrated by Cristina Pieropan. The illustrations are spliced with paper dolls belonging to Victoria, hence the attribution, but these were likely made by Lehzen and may have been coloured by Victoria but were just as likely to have been coloured by either Lehzen, Feodora or Victoire Conroy.

Slightly misleading cover aside, the book is cute and charming and it’s cool to see RCT publish stuff like this. It’s clearly written by a child but there’s a good grasp of language and a general sense of narrative structure, making it better than anything I wrote up until about the age of 23. You can also kind of see how elements of Victoria’s broader play factored into her creative process, which is a sweet little insight into the childhood mind of such a prominent historical figure.