Queen Victoria At Home by Michael De-la Noy (Constable, £20).

FOR a real insight into the life of Queen Victoria there can be no better book than that written by biographer and journalist Michael De-la Noy.

Queen Victoria At Home is just what the title says, a personal portrait of that great monarch.

It shows Victoria, her family, household and ministers throughout her 63-year reign.

In an informative, yet entertaining manner, the book deals with her work for her country, while at the same time balancing her devotion to her husband, her duty as a mother to her nine children and her yearning for domestic privacy.

Michael De-la Noy uses many anecdotes and lively 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Buckingham Palace, where she was the first monarch to live; Windsor Castle; the exotic Royal Pavilion in Brighton - superseded in her regard by Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, where she died; and Balmoral Castle, the home she loved best.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, the Queen's love of riding, theatre and music and her reactions to the arrival of water closets, lifts, telephones and typewriters.

Beverly Abbs