A celebration of the life of Queen Elizabeth II on the centenary of her birth, by the bestselling author of The Making of a King and Queen of Our Times.
Elizabeth II was not born to reign. Like that other great queen in modern history, Victoria, the throne came to her by indirect means. Yet she would become one of the most beloved monarchs in history, surpassing almost every entry in the royal record book. As a child, her idyllic life on the royal fringe was transformed first by the scandalous love life of her wayward uncle and then by war. Despite multiple attacks on the family home, she watched and learned from her father as he led his nation through much suffering to victory, falling in love along the way. At the age of just twenty-five—a young wife and mother of two—she suddenly found herself head of state of much of the Earth, with the greatest statesman of the age as her senior adviser. Her coronation was a moment of national rejuvenation, though swiftly followed by the first of many challenges and crises—personal, political, and global—which would test her over seven decades. The highs and lows of ordinary family life, for her, would be mercilessly scrutinised and magnified through the lens of the world’s media. Unlike Shakespeare’s monarchs, the dramatists would set to work in her own lifetime.

On the centenary of her birth, amid all the commemorating and celebrating, it is time to bring the whole extraordinary story of her life to a new audience in a fresh, accessible, concise portrait—one which will enthrall those who have now come to realize that Elizabeth II was not merely the most famous woman in the world, captured on banknotes, coins, and The Crown. She was one of history’s all-time greats.