Queen Victoria ruled from 1837 - 1901, giving her name to an age of history. These diaries were kept, at her mother's behest, in the years before she became queen and until just after her accession. A young girl can be seen moving from having no understanding of her position and likely future, through her teenage years and the realisation that she would be the next monarch of England, up to her handling of the first months of her reign. The first hand description of her coronation, and her close relationship with her first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, supplement an unusual insight into the early life of a vivacious young woman more often remembered as a dour old lady.