Lytton Stachey was best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit. His biography "Queen Victoria" (1921) was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
Victoria herself was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901, becoming so prominent that her reign is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.