The Queen

by Elizabeth Longford

Book Overview

The Life of Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary), the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394523288
• ISBN13: 9780394523286
• Release Date: October 1983
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 415 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeths life has always been in the public eye but this book gives an incite into her private and personal life without revealing too much or holding back too little.

A serious look at England's current reigning queen

In this superb biography, we first see Elizabeth as a child: daughter of George V's second son, with little or no prospect of reaching the throne, yet a favorite of her grandfather's and, from an early age, possessed of the qualities-self-discipline, attentiveness conscientiousness-that would mark her character as queen. We see her idyllic family life come to an end with the Abdication of her uncle Edward VIII: her parents suddenly thrust into a situation they had never desired; her life and that of her sister, Margaret, transformed; and her father beginning, almost immediately, to prepare "the mantle of Elijah" for the"young shoulders of Elisha." We see her earliest meeting with Prince Phillip of Greece {she was 13, he was 18}, their growing romance, their marriage in 1947, and her few years of relatively normal wifehood and motherhood until, in 1952, the sudden untimely death of her adored father led to her ascension to the throne. Lady Longford goes on to examine the queen's relationships with her prime ministers, her involvement-or lack of it-in various political decisions, the ways in which she and Prince Philip have brough the Royal Family closer to the public {the official, but informal, strolls, or "walkabouts," for example}, her extensive travels, and her strong, acive embodiment of the idea of Commonwealth. And we see, as well, the private side of Elizabeth's long-already more than thirty years-reign: the births of her four children; the routines of the far-from-normal but often "refreshingly informal," Royal Family; her passion for breeding and racing horses; her increasing need for moments of privacy and how she manages them without neglecting her formidable duties