Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Memoirs
Weblink
www.sallybedellsmith.com

ELIZABETH THE QUEEN

Sally Bedell Smith

Inside the Life of a Modern Monarch

A revelatory and compulsively readable biography of Queen Elizabeth II to coincide with Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee in 2012.

Known for her extensively researched and deeply engaging portraits of public figures from the Clintons to the Kennedys to Princess Diana, Sally Bedell Smith now explores the public and private lives of the most prominent monarch of our time, offering fresh insights into how the Queen, who ascended to the throne in 1952 at the age of 26, balances her duties as head of state with her myriad family relationships her husband of over six decades, Prince Philip, her four headline-grabbing children, her vivacious and strong-minded mother, her tempestuous sister, and her grandchildren. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with the Queen's friends, family, advisers, peers, politicians, clerics, and generals; previously unexamined archives; and original reporting on the Queen at work in Britain and abroad, Sally Bedell Smith shows us Elizabeth the daughter, the wife, the mother; the diplomat and the leader: Elizabeth the Queen. Sally Bedell Smith is the author of the bestselling biographies of William S. Paley, Pamela Harriman, Diana, Princess of Wales, John and Jacqueline Kennedy (Grace and Power) and Bill and Hillary Clinton (For the Love of Politics). A contributing editor at Vanity Fair since 1996, she previously worked at Time and the New York Times, where she was a cultural news reporter. She was awarded a Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for magazine reporting in 1982 and was a fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in 1986.

Available products
Book Published by Random House
Book Published by Random House

Comments

In Elizabeth, the Queen of Biography gloriously extends her realm to include the greatest monarch of modern times. Sally Bedell Smith has produced a deeply researched, unvarnished and therefore totally fascinating portrait of the transcendent icon of our age. Many authors have written about Elizabeth II, but none of them can match the literary style, wit or insightful commentary of Sally Bedell Smith. To have any understanding of the Queen, you must first read Elizabeth, the Queen.

She was so young, and the task was so enormous. Yet with grace and a determination to do her duty come what may--and so much has indeed come--Elizabeth II studiously made herself part of the fabric of global civilization in the most tumultuous of times. In this distinguished and engaging biography, Sally Bedell Smith has given us a memorable portrait of the woman who has managed the seemingly impossible job of leading an ancient institution into modern times. This is a terrific book about a fascinating figure.

Elizabeth the Queen...comes as close to answering [the] questions as anyone can without hearing directly from Elizabeth...a meticulously researched volume...with choice details gleaned from countless interviews of those close to Queen Elizabeth.

A respectful, engrossing and perceptive portrayal.

The [diamond jubilee] celebration is in June--plenty of time to swot up on your royal knowledge, and Smith's is a smart and satisfying book to do it with.

Sally Bedell Smith's book on Queen Elizabeth II is an enterprising, well-researched and intelligent work on a difficult subject, and deserves to be widely read.

In an era plagued by flawed public figures, the world’s most famous woman has graced her realm impeccably for sixty years. She does so by being both mysterious and grounded. Sally Bedell Smith, with great reporting and insightful writing, provides a revealing look inside the palace to show how the Queen balances being both modern and traditional. Our celebrity-saturated world could learn a lot from her –and from this book.

After 60 years on the throne, the monarch of Britain is better known for her poker face than for sly wit or easy charm. Yet in biographer Sally Bedell Smith's Elizabeth the Queen, Her Majesty sparkles with both. Via interviews with a legion of royal watchers, from horse trainers to lords and ladies, Smith teases out a woman both austere and animated, duty-bound yet undeniably authentic.

An excellent all-embracing new biography of Queen Elizabeth II by the superb chronicler Sally Bedell Smith....[who] pulls fascinating details into her portrait of Elizabeth, shining a beam onto unlighted corners of the monarch's experience.

Sally Bedell Smith's Elizabeth the Queen is a remarkable and sympathetic portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which gets behind the façade without ever slipping into the sensational or the attempt to guess at what she might think. At the same time, it provides a fascinating picture of the major modern enterprise that monarchy has become, a unique institution of which the Queen has been for six decades, the CEO, and which, despite crises, criticism and changes in Britain's social structure and place in the world, continues to flourish in her hands. A deft and very readable book.

Elizabeth the Queen is an engaging, insightful and altogether entertaining journey through the life and trials of the world’s most beloved monarch. By the end of Sally Bedell Smith’s winning book I felt as if I had a new friend in Buckingham Palace.

This is a biography that avoids none of the difficult questions. Sally Bedell Smith asks them in a way no one else has dared.

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