Queen Victoria, whose reign lasted from 1837 until her death in 1901, is mentioned in several of the episodes of Ulysses. She was the queen during the time England became a colonial global power in a relentless conquest of the world's peoples and their resources. In the first passage below from the Proteus episode Stephen relates the quotation of a Frenchman, Drumont, with a view of Queen Victoria that was not uncommon among Irish people.

"Drumont, know what he called queen Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. VIEILLE OGRESSE with the DENTS JAUNES."

The French "VIEILLE OGRESSE . . . DENTS JAUNES" means "Old ogress . . . yellow teeth." Gifford indicates that in folklore cannibalism turns people's teeth yellow. According to Gifford, Edouard Adolphe Drumont (1844-1917) was a French editor and journalist whose newspaper, La Libre Parole was distinguished primarily for the acrimony of its anti-Semitism. Queen Victoria was "honored more in the breach than in the observance" by the Irish people.

Stephen had just had conversations with Haines and Deasy about their stereotypical view of Jews which may have prompted the thought of another anti-Semite, Drumont.

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This passage from the Hades episode has to do with the mourning by Queen Victoria for her late husband, Albert, which was considered by some to be both vane and prolonged.

"She had outlived him. Lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you'll soon follow him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who knows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But in the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was the substance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back, waiting. It never comes. One must go first: alone, under the ground: and lie no more in her warm bed."

Richard Ellmann in Ulysses on the Liffey discusses how Joyce views the difference between Leopold Bloom who has lived with a woman and Stephen Dedalus who has not and how this difference is revealed through their disparate views of Queen Victoria. Stephen is content to refer to her with the amusing epithet of a French journalist, while Bloom "thinks of her as a widow like the widow Dignam" as he thinks of her with empathy in the "widowhood" passage above (38).

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There is more on the Queen in the Lestrygonians episode:

"Twilight sleep idea: queen Victoria was given that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old woman that lived in a shoe she had so many children."

The references to the "laying hen" and the nursery rhyme speak of her fecundity in giving birth to four sons and five daughters; "twilight sleep" was her use of a partial anesthetic during the birth of Prince Leopold.

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The Wandering Rocks episode includes this narrative about the cavalcade described near the end of the episode:

"the salute of two small schoolboys at the garden gate of the house said to have been admired by the late queen when visiting the Irish capital with her husband, the prince consort, in 1849 and the salute of Almidano Artifoni's sturdy trousers swallowed by a closing door."

According to Gifford, Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, spent four day in Dublin, August 6-10, 1849 in the course of their first visit to Ireland. The house the schoolboys salute was a house the Queen admired that was on the road that led them to the center of Dublin.

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In the Cyclops episode Queen Victoria's image on the coin (testoon) is the stimulus for the narrative of her Royal German ancestry and something of her royal rule throughout the world.

"But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be outdone in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon of costliest bronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork was seen the image of a queen of regal port, scion of the house of Brunswick, Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions beyond the sea, queen, defender of the faith, Empress of India, even she, who bore rule, a victress over many peoples, the wellbeloved, for they knew and loved her from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, the pale, the dark, the ruddy and the ethiop."

"His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta" made a visit to England in the summer of 1904. Abeakuta was a small province in western Nigeria and the Alaki was its ruler or Sultan of that province.

Citizen, in Cyclops is reading from paraphernalia papers is commenting on this visit.

The Alaki, "emphasized the cordial relations existing between Abeakuta and the British empire, stating that he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an illuminated bible, the volume of the word of God and the secret of England's greatness, graciously presented to him by the white chief woman, the great squaw Victoria, with a personal dedication from the august hand of the Royal Donor."

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Finally in the Ithaca episode Queen Victoria is mentioned twice. In this episode the narrative is a Catechism of pedantic questions answered by rote. One of these references pertains to the contents of a drawer which contains, among other things, a Queen Victoria postage stamp as follows:

"What did the first drawer unlocked contain?
"a Id adhesive stamp, lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria,"

A question about what had kept Bloom from completing a certain "topical song" is answered by listing six obstacles, the first of which is, " Firstly, oscillation between events of imperial and of local interest, the anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (born 1820, acceded 1837) and the posticipated opening of the new municipal fish market:"

The diamond jubilee was in 1897 so Bloom's procrastination had lasted from then until the time of the story, i.e., 1904.