Queen Victoria was our longest reigning monarch, a symbol of Britain’s great age of power and imperialism.

But her life could so easily have been cut short. Just three years after she ascended to the throne, a humble pot-boy fired a brace of pistols at her from just six paces away. She escaped unharmed, but amazingly there were seven further attacks or attempts on her life over the next forty-seven years.

The perpetrators were a mixture of madmen, attention-seekers, and fiends: the unemployed carpenter who ended up transported to the hell of a labour camp in Van Dieman’s Land; the midget newsvendor who eventually took his own life; the army officer who dressed as a dandy; the disaffected artist, and the Fenian terrorists.

Through it all there is Victoria; how she coped with the fear and became a symbol of resolve and determination. Each chapter of this book captures the drama of the attack and uncovers the would-be assassin’s motives, describing their lives up to that point, their trial and sentence, and what became of them afterwards.

Extensive original research in England and Australia has uncovered a mass of new and previously unpublished detail that makes for an absorbing read.