A biography of Queen Victoria in Gujarati, published in Mumbai in 1887 to mark the Golden Jubilee and presented to the queen.


In 1887, the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne was marked with a Golden Jubilee. The culmination was a thanksgiving service held at Westminster Abbey on 21 June. The queen rode in a carriage procession to the Abbey from Buckingham Palace, and recorded afterwards in her Journal that the crowds were ‘enormous’, and ‘all the people seemed to be in such good humour’. At the close of the day, an exhausted Queen Victoria wrote that she was ‘truly grateful that all had passed off so admirably’, and that ‘this never to be forgotten day, will always leave the most gratifying & heart stirring memories behind’. She was to reign for another 14 years, celebrating her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

Ichharam Suryaram Desai ('Shankar') (1853-1912) was a Gujarati scholar, author, anthologist, journalist and editor. Though he had no formal education beyond primary school, he worked with numerous newspapers and magazines, wrote political novels, edited anthologies and translated several works into Gujarati including this biography of Queen Victoria which was presented to the Queen in 1887 as a gift commemorating her Golden Jubilee.