Magnificent obsession

"Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, succumbed to typhoid fever in 1861. He was forty-two and official bulletins had, until the previous day, given no cause for alarm. His death was a catastrophe for Victoria, who relied on him utterly. The Queen donned the widow's weeds that she would wear for forty years and retreated into a state of pathological grief which nobody could penetrate and few u...