Reproduction of the original: The Dairyman ́s Daughter by Legh Richmond

The story of five women who shared one of the most extraordinary and privileged sisterhoods of all time. Vicky, Alice, Helena, and Beatrice were historically unique sisters, born to a sovereign who ruled over a quarter of the earth's people and who gave her name to an era: Queen Victoria. Two of these princesses would themselves produce children of immense consequence. All five would curiously come to share many of the social restrictions and familial machinations borne by nineteenth-century women of less-exulted class. Victoria and Albert's precocious firstborn child, Vicky, wed a Prussian prince in a political match her high-minded father hoped would bring about a more liberal Anglo-German order. That vision met with disaster when Vicky's son Wilhelm-- to be known as Kaiser Wilhelm-- turned against both England and his mother, keeping her out of the public eye for the rest of her life. Gentle, quiet Alice had a happier marriage, one that produced Alexandra, later to become Tsarina of Russia, and yet another Victoria, whose union with a Battenberg prince was to found the present Mountbatten clan. However, she suffered from melancholia and died at age thirty-five of what appears to have been a deliberate, grief-fueled exposure to the diphtheria germs that had carried away her youngest daughter. Middle child Helena struggled against obesity and drug addition but was to have lasting effect as Albert's literary executor. By contrast, her glittering and at times scandalous sister Louise, the most beautiful of the five siblings, escaped the claustrophobic stodginess of the European royal courts by marrying a handsome Scottish commoner, who became governor general of Canada, and eventually settled into artistic salon life as a respected sculptor. And as the baby of the royal brood of nine, rebelling only briefly to forge a short-lived marriage, Beatrice lived under the thumb of her mother as a kind of personal secretary until the queen's death. Principally researched at the houses and palaces of its five subjects in London, Scotland, Berlin, Darmstadt, and Ottawa-- and entertainingly written by an experienced biographer whose last book concerned Victoria's final days-- Victoria's Daughters closely examines a generation of royal women who were dominated by their mother, married off as much for political advantage as for love, and finally passed over entirely with the accession of their n0 brother Bertie to the throne. Packard provides valuable insights into their complex, oft-tragic lives as daughters of their time.

Dreams have captivated human imagination throughout the time. However, in the year 1900, dreams also gained an important place in psychotherapy when Sigmund Freud proposed that dreams were the royal road to the unconscious. The following book presents an overview of the history of dreams and discusses the shift from the use of latent content to that of the manifest content during dream analysis. Additionally, various methods of dream interpretation, the functions of dreams, differing schools of thought on the utility of dreams, typical dreams, and the biological challenge to dream theory are discussed. From antiquity, the universal phenomena of dreaming has captivated human imagination, confused human logic, and controlled human endeavors. Dreams have been regarded as very important, as messages from the gods, predictive of the future, expiatory of guilt, and the voice of conscience. Shamans, seers, and saints have used dreams to discern the source of sickness or to set the course of nations. Poets, philosophers, and playwrights have sought to plumb the depths of dreams in order to lure audience or readers into the world of fantasy, to play the strings of the emotions, and to recall the unthinkable. Cognitive, information processing, and neuroscientists find in dreams brain activity that can help understand REM, memory consolidation, and the unconscious state.

Dreadful nightmares and panic attacks were the birth pangs of the author's book... She had survived the third and almost successful attempt on her life by her husband, so in a sudden rush of courage brought on by the knowledge that if she did not leave immediately he would definitely kill her she fled him in Sri Lanka to arrive in San Francisco in the clothes she stood up in a few dollars in her pocket and very near to complete nervous collapse. She made her way to Santa Cruz where the owner of a small B&B rescued her with long walks and lots of good advice but three years later the excruciating nightmares and panic attacks still persisted so she took her friends advice to put it all down on paper...in other words... " externalize it m'dear and then it will become just another bad dream." Ignoring the pun she did just that but when she put pen to paper there was the clear voice of a little girl in her mind who wanted to take her to a special time and place if she wanted to confront her worst fears...