Queen Victoria maintained diaries and journals throughout her life, filling 122 volumes which were expurgated after her death by her daughter Princess Beatrice. Extracts were published during her life and sold well. The collection is stored in the Royal Archives and, in 2012, was put online in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries.

Princess Beatrice, later Princess Henry of Battenberg, was the fifth daughter and youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Beatrice was also the last of Queen Victoria's children to die, nearly 66 years after the first, her elder sister Alice.