Editing Queen Victoria (section)

===Reputation===
{{See also|Cultural depictions of Queen Victoria}}
[[File:Her Majesty's Gracious Smile by Charles Knight.JPG|thumb|left|alt=Victoria smiling|Victoria amused. The remark "We are not amused" is attributed to her but there is no direct evidence that she ever said it,<ref name="odnb"/><ref>[[Roger Fulford|Fulford, Roger]] (1967) "Victoria", ''Collier's Encyclopedia'', United States: Crowell, Collier and Macmillan Inc., vol. 23, p. 127</ref> and she denied doing so.<ref>[[Mike Ashley (writer)|Ashley, Mike]] (1998) ''British Monarchs'', London: Robinson, {{ISBN|1-84119-096-9}}, p. 690</ref> Her staff and family recorded that Victoria "was immensely amused and roared with laughter" on many occasions.<ref>Example from a letter written by lady-in-waiting Marie Mallet née Adeane, quoted in Hibbert, p. 471</ref>]]

According to one of her biographers, Giles St Aubyn, Victoria wrote an average of 2,500 words a day during her adult life.<ref>Hibbert, p. xv; St Aubyn, p. 340</ref> From July 1832 until just before her death, she kept a detailed [[Queen Victoria's journals|journal]], which eventually encompassed 122 volumes.<ref>St Aubyn, p. 30; Woodham-Smith, p. 87</ref> After Victoria's death, her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, was appointed her literary executor. Beatrice transcribed and edited the diaries covering Victoria's accession onwards, and burned the originals in the process.<ref>Hibbert, pp. 503–504; St Aubyn, p. 30; Woodham-Smith, pp. 88, 436–437</ref> Despite this destruction, much of the diaries still exist. In addition to Beatrice's edited copy, [[Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher|Lord Esher]] transcribed the volumes from 1832 to 1861 before Beatrice destroyed them.<ref>Hibbert, p. 503</ref> Part of Victoria's extensive correspondence has been published in volumes edited by [[A. C. Benson]], [[Hector Bolitho]], [[George Earle Buckle]], Lord Esher, [[Roger Fulford]], and [[Richard Hough]] among others.<ref>Hibbert, pp. 503–504; St Aubyn, p. 624</ref>

In her later years, Victoria was stout, dowdy, and about {{convert|5|ft|m|abbr=off|spell=in}} tall, but she projected a grand image.<ref>Hibbert, pp. 61–62; Longford, pp. 89, 253; St Aubyn, pp. 48, 63–64</ref> She was unpopular during the first years of her widowhood, but was well liked during the 1880s and 1890s, when she embodied the empire as a benevolent matriarchal figure.<ref>Marshall, p. 210; Waller, pp. 419, 434–435, 443</ref> Only after the release of her diary and letters did the extent of her political influence become known to the wider public.<ref name="odnb" /><ref>Waller, p. 439</ref> Biographies of Victoria written before much of the primary material became available, such as [[Lytton Strachey]]'s ''Queen Victoria'' of 1921, are now considered out of date.<ref>St Aubyn, p. 624</ref> The biographies written by [[Elizabeth Longford]] and [[Cecil Woodham-Smith]], in 1964 and 1972 respectively, are still widely admired.<ref>Hibbert, p. 504; St Aubyn, p. 623</ref> They, and others, conclude that as a person Victoria was emotional, obstinate, honest, and straight-talking.<ref>e.g. Hibbert, p. 352; Strachey, p. 304; Woodham-Smith, p. 431</ref>
[[File:Victoria Memorial London.JPG|alt=Bronze statue of winged victory mounted on a marble four-sided base with a marble figure on each side|upright|thumb|The [[Victoria Memorial (London)|Victoria Memorial]] in front of [[Buckingham Palace]] was erected a decade after her death.]]

Through Victoria's reign, the gradual establishment of a modern [[constitutional monarchy]] in Britain continued. Reforms of the voting system increased the power of the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] at the expense of the [[House of Lords]] and the monarch.<ref>Waller, p. 429</ref> In 1867, [[Walter Bagehot]] wrote that the monarch only retained "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn".<ref>{{Citation |last=Bagehot |first=Walter |title=The English Constitution |date=1867 |page=103 |place=London |publisher=Chapman and Hall}}</ref> As Victoria's monarchy became more symbolic than political, it placed a strong emphasis on morality and family values, in contrast to the sexual, financial and personal scandals that had been associated with previous members of the House of Hanover and which had discredited the monarchy. The concept of the "family monarchy", with which the burgeoning middle classes could identify, was solidified.<ref>St Aubyn, pp. 602–603; Strachey, pp. 303–304; Waller, pp. 366, 372, 434</ref>