Books on Current and Recent British Royals

[IloveCP]

Does anyone know the most accurate bio on Elizabeth II? I would love to read a book on her but I want to make sure it's truthful.

[sarahedwards2]

Are there any books about Princess Anne? My library only has one (only one copy of it too), and I put in a request for it. But are there any others?

[Warren]

The Royal Baby Book
A Heir-Raising History of All Things Royal Baby
by Alison James

no publisher's details available
available on Amazon "soon"

Facebook Introduction

"The birth of every baby is special. It is the most magical, mysterious phenomenon in the human experience. But when that baby is heir - or indeed ‘spare’ – to the British throne, the world’s most famous and distinguished monarchy, it’s a whole new realm of magic and mystery altogether. Marry the miracle that is a new life with the rich history of Royalty and you get a kind of double whammy wow factor – twice the magic, twice the mystery.

Generation after generation have been gripped by fairy and folk tales in which Royal babies have played leading roles. Think ‘Sleeping Beauty’ where the new-born Princess Aurora is cursed at her christening, ‘Rapunzel ‘ in which another new-born Princess is kidnapped for her youth-giving properties, ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ where a tiny baby Prince will be abducted unless his mother can complete the impossible tasks set for her. . . Some of the characters featured in this book would not be out of place in such mythical stories. In the 1500s, Philip the Handsome, King of Castile, refused to pay for the upkeep of his first child because she was female; Henry, Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary Queen of Scots, was involved in the murder of pregnant Mary’s musician David Rizzio who was killed in front of her because Darnley suspected Rizzio of fathering the child she was carrying; Princess Thyra of Denmark, Edward VII’s unmarried sister-in-law, was banished to Greece when she became pregnant by an army officer in 1871 and, having given birth, never saw her baby who was immediately handed over to a laundry maid. And Prince John, the youngest brother of George VI, suffered from epilepsy and was forced to live apart from his family.

Within these pages are tales of hope and fear, joy and pain, drama and conflict, pride and betrayal, triumph and tragedy, life and death – there’s humour, too, albeit somewhat black. Real-life stories played out over the centuries in the history of begetting, carrying and bearing babies of the Blood Royal, through to babyhood and beyond. It’s a sensational, often surreal, kind of soap opera but one with a sovereign spin. That’s not all it is, though. It’s also a social history of how we came into being, were born and survived through infancy and childhood. It’s the social evolution of these life stages over time from, for example, the Ancient Queens of Egypt who gave birth squatting on two large bricks within a reed-covered dwelling erected specially for childbirth, with only amulets and spells spelt out on papyrus to help with pain, to today’s Royal mothers some of whom, like the Countess of Wessex, have conceived with the help of IVF techniques.

Where Royalty lead, the rest of us have traditionally tended to follow. The Duchess of Cambridge, like her late mother-in-law Diana, is the Queen of trendsetters. Catherine’s fashion sense, hair and make-up styles are copied the world over – and it’s the same with her maternity wardrobe, how she conducts her pregnancy, the decisions she makes regarding the birth of her first infant and future infants, how she and William decide to raise baby Cambridge, and the names they bestow on the new HRH who, whether male or female, will be heir to the world’s best-known and best-loved monarchy. When Prince Harry was born in September 1984, for instance, the name had never featured on any ‘Most Popular ’ lists yet several years on, it was in the top 10.

It was ever thus. Henrietta Maria, wife of 17th century King Charles I, was the first woman in the world to give birth assisted by the top secret gynaecological invention that were forceps - which have been a staple in hospital delivery suites for years now. Queen Victoria blazed a child-birthing trail when she became one of the first women to be administered chloroform for pain relief in labour while her husband was, very unusually for the time, at her bedside on each of the nine occasions she gave birth. Their choice of perambulator - a 'Hitchings' baby carriage with red, white and black livery, and brass fittings – was the must-have purchase for an 1850s yummy mummy, just as Kate and Will Cambridge’s ‘Bugaboo’ or ‘Baby Joggers’ model will be for a 'Twenty Teens' one.

The birth of an heir - or spare - affects us all. It’s a public event of great importance and symbolic significance. As time goes on we will get to know this Royal baby so well, it will almost seem as if the new HRH belongs to us all. And as it is with anyone we love, we’ll want to know their history, heritage and who came before them. That’s just where ‘The Royal Baby Book’ comes in. . ."

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[Warren]

"Hot Dogs and Cocktails
When FDR met King George VI at Hyde Park on Hudson"
by Peter Conradi

• Published as an ebook
  
• File Size: 360 KB
• Publisher: Peter Conradi (December 20, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00AR7RXH4
• Kindle edition (link)
  

"Hyde Park on Hudson" thread link
(Bill Murray film on the same subject in the TRF's Electronic Domain) -> Hyde Park on Hudson

Amazon blurb

This is the story behind the historic meeting between Franklin D Roosevelt and King George VI on the eve of the Second World War, now the subject of a major Hollywood movie, Hyde Park on Hudson, starring Bill Murray as FDR.

Between 9th and 12th June 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were the guests of Roosevelt at his country estate in Hyde Park, New York State, during what was the first ever visit by a reigning British monarch to the United States. Coming at a time when Britain desperately needed American help in the conflict that now seemed inevitable, the meeting was front page news on both sides of the Atlantic and imbued with huge political significance.

In his new book Peter Conradi – who has already introduced us to the gentle, shy figure of George VI in his number-one bestseller The King’s Speech – recreates the backdrop to the royal visit, analysing the political background and the media’s reaction, and telling the back stories both of the King and of Roosevelt, whose colourful personal life became entwined with the visit.

It culminates in the picnic the president hosted for his royal guests in the grounds of his home, in which, to the fascination of newspapers, the King sipped cocktails and sampled that most “democratic” of American foods, the humble hot dog. “King tries hot dog and asks for more” proclaimed The New York Times excitedly the next day. The result is a lively and riveting account of a defining moment in recent world history.

Author's synopsis

You are probably aware of the new film Hyde Park on Hudson, starring Bill Murray, which centres on a picnic that FDR hosted for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II in June 1939 on the eve of WW2.

My book, entitled Hot Dogs and Cocktails, How FDR met King George VI at Hyde Park on Hudson, tells the true story behind the picnic which was, in fact, the culmination of an historic three-week tour of North America by the royal couple that took them all the way across Canada and to Washington and New York, where millions of people turned out to see them. The trip - though largely forgotten until the film came out - was a huge deal at the time and did a lot to change American attitudes to monarchy.

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reproduced with permission

[angieuk]

NEW BOOKS June 2013
Harry the peoples’ prince
Chris Hutchins
Publisher: The Robson Press (25 April 2013)
ISBN-10: 1849545472
ISBN-13: 978-1849545471

Kate Middleton's British Style
Publisher: Carlton books Ltd (6 Jun 2013)
ISBN-10: 178097065X
ISBN-13: 978-1780970653

Kate – A Biography
Publisher: Michael O'Mara books (1 July 2013)
ISBN-10: 1782431098
ISBN-13: 978-1782431091

Royal Babies: A History 1066-2013
Publisher: Amberley Publishing (28 July 2013)
ISBN-10: 1445617625
ISBN-13: 978-1445617626

The New Royal Family
Publisher: John Blake Publishing (5 Aug 2013)
ISBN-10: 1782194568
ISBN-13: 978-1782194569

William and Kate – Their Royal Life
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing; 1 edition (1 Aug 2013)
ISBN-10: 1909242101
ISBN-13: 978-1909242104

Harry – A Biography
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books Ltd (5 Sep 2013)
ISBN-10: 1782430377
ISBN-13: 978-1782430377
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Kate and Britain's Commoner Queens: The Uncommon Lives and Histories of Kate's Predecessors
Publisher: Gibson Square Books Ltd (24 Mar 2011)
ISBN-10: 1908096004
ISBN-13: 978-1908096005

[blauerengel]

Did anyone read any of the books above? Would be interesting to know how they were received-what is good and what could have been better- and if they are worth a read;-)

[casper1]

Now available from Amazon! The must-have accompaniment to celebrate the birth of Baby Cambridge. . .

The Royal Baby Book

[casper1]

So excited about the birth, I've written a book about Royal pregnancies, births and babies in history!

Which Queen gave birth in the rain? Which Princesses have had secret love children? Which Prince pee’d on his nanny at his christening? Which pregnant Queen had a craving for cucumbers? Which Princess didn’t conceive for 10 years? Who’s been the oldest Royal mum and who was the youngest? Which Duke was not ‘heir-conditioned’? Who’s your Royal birthday twin? In this fact-packed, fun-filled, relevant yet irreverent read, you’ll find the answers to these right Royal questions – and a whole lot more. It’s everything you’ve always wanted to know about how Royals throughout history have gone forth and multiplied. . .

'The Royal Baby Book - a Heir Raising History of all things Royal Baby' is available on at The Royal Baby Book: A Heir-Raising History of All Things Royal Baby: Amazon.co.uk: Alison James: Books or http://www.amazon.com/www.amazon.com..._se_p_t_1_2KN0.

The Royal Baby Book

[casper1]

So excited about the birth, I've written a book about Royal pregnancies, births and babies in history!

Which Queen gave birth in the rain? Which Princesses have had secret love children? Which Prince pee’d on his nanny at his christening? Which pregnant Queen had a craving for cucumbers? Which Princess didn’t conceive for 10 years? Who’s been the oldest Royal mum and who was the youngest? Which Duke was not ‘heir-conditioned’? Who’s your Royal birthday twin? In this fact-packed, fun-filled, relevant yet irreverent read, you’ll find the answers to these right Royal questions – and a whole lot more. It’s everything you’ve always wanted to know about how Royals throughout history have gone forth and multiplied. . .

'The Royal Baby Book - a Heir Raising History of all things Royal Baby' by Alison James is available at The Royal Baby Book: A Heir-Raising History of All Things Royal Baby: Amazon.co.uk: Alison James: Books Books or http://www.amazon.com/www.amazon.com..._se_p_t_1_2KN0.

The Royal Baby Book

[CarolynHarris]

A history of Britain in 25 royal births!

My review: Royal Babies: A History 1066-2013 by Amy Licence (Review) | Carolyn Harris: Royal Historian

[CarolynHarris]

Fascinating history of the monarchy's role in the Commonwealth since WWII

Monarchy and the End of Empire: The House of Windsor, the British Government and the Postwar Commonwealth by Philip Murphy (Review) | Carolyn Harris: Royal Historian

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[CyrilVladisla]

Did anyone read William and Harry: Behind the Palace Walls by
Katie Nicholl?

[Queen Camilla]

Frederick John Corbitt worked under 4 British Monarchs.

His book was published in 1956 and the entire text is available in the link.

Full text of "MY TWENTY YEARS IN BUCKINGHAM PALACE"

It is an easy and quick read. (Although a few typos.)

Interesting stories about George V & Queen Mary, George VI & Queen Elizabeth (QEQM), the current Queen & Prince Philip, and Princess Margaret & Peter Townsend.

Here is the list of chapters.
1 I Join the Royal Staff 3
2 Occasions of State 19
3 Three Royal Weddings 37
4 Catering for Celebrations 44
5 Racing at Cowes and Ascot 50
6 How Buckingham Palace Works 57
7 Balmoral Days and Tales 105
8 When Royalty Celebrates Christmases
and Birthdays 121
9 The King in War 145
10 Four Reigns 175
11 Edward the King 213
12 Another Royal Romance: Princess Margaret
and Peter Townsend 228
13 The Ever-Changing, Ever-Stable Monarchy 241

[An Ard Ri]

"Treasures From The Royal Archives, Windsor Castle"

Skeletons from the royal closet, a new book from the Royal Archives gives a fascinating insight into 700 years of regal life | Mail Online


University of Chicago Press
Since 1914, the Round Tower at Windsor Castle has been home to the Royal Archives, an extraordinary collection of documents dating back to the thirteenth century. To commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the founding of a permanent home for the Royal Archives in the Tower, highlights from this fascinating and historically significant collection are being published here for the first time.

The treasures photographed and described for this lavish volume range from state records to letters, diaries, and domestic jottings. Among them are the account books of Elizabeth I, the deeds to Sandringham House, a list of Jacobite prisoners taken at the Battle of Culloden in 1745, and a terrifyingly vivid firsthand description of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift. But the book also includes a great many personal documents, including excerpts from the diary of Queen Victoria, as well as letters from Bonnie Prince Charlie; from Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and his chief political rival, William Ewart Gladstone; and from President Lincoln, who commiserates with Queen Victoria in 1861 on the death of Prince Albert.

For those with an interest in British history or the broader history of Britain in the world, Treasures from The Royal Archives will be a true pleasure to peruse.

↓ The somewhat underwhelming cover of "Treasures From the Royal Archives"
Reproduced for promotional purposes

[Warren]

Victoria: A Life
AN Wilson

Atlantic Books
656 pages
0844 871 1515
published 2014

Publisher's Blurb
When Queen Victoria died in 1901, she had ruled for nearly sixty-four years. She was a mother of nine and grandmother of forty-two and the matriarch of royal Europe through her children’s marriages. To many, Queen Victoria is a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, an aging, stiff widow paraded as the figurehead to an all-male imperial enterprise. But in truth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch was one of the most passionate, expressive, humorous and unconventional women who ever lived, and the story of her life continues to fascinate.

A. N. Wilson’s exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources to show us Queen Victoria as she’s never been seen before. Wilson explores the curious set of circumstances that led to Victoria’s coronation, her strange and isolated childhood, her passionate marriage to Prince Albert and his pivotal influence even after death and her widowhood and subsequent intimate friendship with her Highland servant John Brown, all set against the backdrop of this momentous epoch in Britain’s history—and the world’s.

Born at the very moment of the expansion of British political and commercial power across the globe, Victoria went on to chart a unique course for her country even as she became the matriarch of nearly every great dynasty of Europe. Her destiny was thus interwoven with those of millions of people—not just in Europe but in the ever-expanding empire that Britain was becoming throughout the nineteenth century. The famed queen had a face that adorned postage stamps, banners, statues and busts all over the known world.

Wilson’s Victoria is a towering achievement, a masterpiece of biography by a writer at the height of his powers.

publicbooks.org review
extracts [reproduced here with permission]

Queen Victoria's Power
Arianne Chernock

...[Walter] Bagehot, an early editor of the Economist, famously assigned the English constitutional sovereign three distinct rights: “the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.” The argument was meant to appease Britons skeptical of retaining the Crown...

Bagehot receives no mention in A. N. Wilson’s new biography of Queen Victoria—straightforwardly titled Victoria: A Life—but Wilson, like Bartlett, is keen to show that even the constricted sovereign can wield a surprising degree of influence. Toward the end of her long reign (1837–1901), Victoria was routinely praised for embodying the qualities of the ideal constitutional monarch. But what constituted this ideal behavior?

While the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had rejected absolutism, the concept of constitutional monarchy remained very much a work in progress, even as late as the 19th century. The Bill of Rights(1689) had made clear that the king or queen ruled with the consent of parliament, but the precise terms of this relationship would come to be dictated more by custom than by written law. Many of Victoria’s subjects seem to have assumed, like Bagehot, that constitutionalism meant that the sovereign would now be part of the “dignified” rather than “efficient” part of government.

If many Victorians regarded their sovereign as embodying one version of Bagehot’s paradigm, however, the Queen herself always seems to have had a much more capacious (even if at times shaky) grasp of modern constitutionalism. Deeply informed by the views of her German husband, Prince Albert, Victoria strove to influence domestic and foreign policy from the 1840s on, intervening when necessary. True, she never vetoed legislation or contested election results. But she did go on record as ambivalent about democracy, and reprimanded her ministers when she disagreed with their courses of action, especially on questions of empire, where she tended toward hawkish positions.

This more energetic Queen comes into full relief in A. N. Wilson’s account. His first chapter establishes the framework for the interpretation that follows: “The Victorians liked to tell one another that the monarch was simply a figurehead … This was not really the case.” As Wilson explains it, Victoria, under Albert’s tutelage, came to see her role as fundamental to the British state. Deeply informed by the German liberalism of Baron Stockmar, the royal couple’s advisor, Victoria and Albert worked together from their marriage in 1840 until Albert’s untimely death in 1861 to reinvent the Crown as a “workable modern political institution, strong enough to resist the forces of revolution which, since 1789, had threatened Europe.”

Their vision turned on a desire to place the monarchy above political party, but not above politics; when necessary, they felt that the Crown must intervene in the name of protecting the principles of free trade and the parliamentary system. At the same time, they were committed to making the royal family, rather than just the reigning king or queen, central to the nation’s cultural and psychic life—thus their frequent commissioning of intimate domestic scenes by the German painter Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

It was this particular vision of constitutional monarchy—as both a guarantor of liberal principles and custodian of middle-class morality—that Victoria and Albert hoped to export to the Continent, through the marriages of their rapidly expanding brood...

...Too often, to the extent that the Victorian Crown is portrayed as political, Albert gets most of the credit for royal engagement. Once he departs the stage, goes the standard account, the inconsolable Queen retreats to the grounds of Balmoral...Wilson...gives Victoria’s widowhood a more updated treatment. Gone is [Lytton] Strachey’s “accessory” to government. Instead, we see a monarch clearly distressed, yes, but also deeply absorbed by the day-to-day operations of the state. “It is true, certainly,” Wilson concedes, “that Victoria was desolated by Albert’s death; that the woman, who loved the theatre and the opera and the ballet, who enjoyed great dinners, was changed into a sable-clad widow who shunned society. It is by no means true, however, that she lost interest in political affairs.

As Wilson’s own analysis makes clear, the Queen exerted far more influence than most of her subjects realized. “It was not always easy,” he writes midway through, “for Queen Victoria to know where her authority began and ended.” Nor should it have been. If anything, in fact, the rapid expansion of Britain’s empire made the contours of the Queen’s reign even more ambiguous. At home, the House of Commons was gaining the upper hand, especially after the passage of the Representation of the People Acts of 1867 and 1884, which dramatically expanded the electorate to include roughly 60 percent of the adult male population. In the colonies, however, the sovereign remained a potent figure. Subjects who came under British rule during this period often believed that it was the “Great White Queen” who controlled their fates. Colonial administrators, realizing that it was in their interests, did little to correct the mistake.

→ The full review can be read at publicbooks.org

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[Kellydofc]

I have just started this book today. So far the writing style is a little rambling but as I'm not even 100 pages in yet I'm going to hope it gets better.

[Sun Lion]

Today's newspaper has a review of this "marvellous" new coffee table book.

It covers each Royal visit, from the very first in 1867 - where Prince Alfred had to survive an assassination attempt that put him in hospital - to the success of baby Prince George's tour in 2014, in the company of his parents.

Filled with photos, paintings, clippings and memorabilia, the book also discusses Australia's changing attitude towards royalty, and in turn, our impact on the Royal Family.

(Published by the National Library of Australia, it's priced at $39.99 Oz dollars.)

[Sun Lion]

I so want this book!

A new book has just been published - "William and Kate's Britain: A Unique Guide to the Haunts of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge" - by Claudia Joseph, from Splendid Books, for the price of only 9.99 pounds.

Covering their school days and university, their first wedding anniversary, where they brought their king-size bed (!), the curtains the Duchess made for the kitchen of their rental home, a champagne only fridge(!) and just about everything else.

There is a detailed synopsis in the Mail Online, under the heading "Kate and Wills' love map of Britain"

[nascarlucy]

Sounds like an interesting book. I have several books on William and Kate.

[Sun Lion]

Originally Posted by nascarlucy

Sounds like an interesting book. I have several books on William and Kate.

Sounds like a fun book too, nascarlucy.

I didn't know Prince Philip had bought a lobster adoption - for only 2.50 pounds - for little Prince George.

And that the said lobster's progress is regularly relayed to PG as part of the deal.