Customer Reviews

Elizabeth: A Biography of Britain's Queen

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have read many things about Queen Elizabeth II and this is, by far, the best! It is well- balanced, dignified, and fairly exhaustive. If you are looking for sensationalism and "dirt" look elsewhere. This work seems to be more about truth then hype. Although Her Majesty is treated with dignity in its pages, this does not mean that her disappointments and tragedies (and those of her family) are ignored. I feel this is an very readable and honest portrait of a great woman.

This is the greatest bio of Queen Elizabeth to date. Very informative book indeed. The best part of the book is the section concerning Princess Margaret, the Queens sister, and all the drama concerning her love life. Very juicy! Great read.

This book begins at the beginning, giving details about how the Windsors came into being with previous kings, the abdication of Edward VIII, Princess Margaret's doomed romance with Group Captain Townsend, the prime ministers, and, ah yes, the in-laws. Too bad it was written just prior to Diana's death, so there are no details on insight there. Frank and mature in its telling, and not the least bit gossipy. If I were to recommend reading only one book on QEII this would be it.

The most detailed book regarding the life of HRH Princess Elizabeth, then Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I've ever read. Anyone with any interest about Great Britain's queen -and her family- definitely should read this book. Although not always flattering, Sarah Bradford has portrayed HM The Queen as a real person, with real, everyday type problems, whose entire life has been dedicated to service to her country, but at the expense of a stable family life. At certain points, it's as if the queen would happily trade in her extravagent, royal lifestyle just to be like everybody else (one of her subjects).

The sources Sarah Bradford uses for her book, along with her own thorough, detailed reseach of HM Queen Elizabeth II, make for fascinating, non-stop, reading.

Queen Elizabeth is a marvellous and interesting woman. I loved this book and made me realise the Queen's difficulties in her job. Although, it was kind to QE II, Buckingham Palace is there to ensure that no lies are spread about Her Majesty, not to ensure she's made out to be a saint.

Sarah Bradford, an accomplished and very thorough biographer, offers a highly sympathetic and detailed account of Queen Elizabeth II's life up to the mid-1990s. The book sparkles early with fascinating accounts of the Queen's formative years, particularly those during the scandal involving the Duke of Windsor and her father's subsequent -- and highly successful -- reign. In her presentation of Queen Elizabeth's reign, Bradford's biography is occasionally bogged down by an excess of names. The Queen's fondness for horses is also presented in extensive detail. Nevertheless, this biography is successful at providing a peek into Queen Elizabeth's life and offering insight into the Queen's dedication to her role as Queen of Britain and the Commonwealth.

Unfortunately, I read the 1996 version of this superlative biography, but doing so offered some unsettling glimpses of the times to come for The Queen and her clan. This is a surprisingly even-handed biography which neither exploits nor glosses over the troubles in the House of Windsor, and acknowledges the kind permission of The Queen, The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret for their sharing of personal papers. The Queen is a lady I think I'd like to meet, and certainly someone for whom I'd love to work. I don't think I'd enjoy working for anyone else in her family, but she seems to be a great boss. She is portrayed as a kind woman who loves horses, and who is rather remote with her children; not terribly surprising information there. What is surprising is who attuned she is to the goings-on around her, but how she chooses to ignore many of the more troublesome aspects because she loathes confrontation. This is referred to by Sarah Bradford as "ostriching."

One of the sentences that leapt out at me in its optimism was one about Elizabeth's "ability to read the mood of her country." Just over a year later, this would prove tragically wrong when Princess Diana was killed in Paris and The Queen took almost a week to respond to the pain her country was feeling over the loss. It has been a turbulent decade since the original publication, including that awful week, and then the loss of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret in 2002, and I'd like to read updated information regarding those events. I see that there is another version of "Elizabeth" updated in 2002, and I'll have to put that on my "to read" list.

There is little in Ms Bradford's account to contradict Eleanor Roosevelt's view of the Royal Family of the 1950s that they were nice people but vastly detached from real life; possibly Mrs Roosevelt would have been less kindly disposed to the irresponsible younger royals of more recent years. It is a considerable feat to render people interesting whose importance derives wholly from their station, and Ms Bradford succeeds admirably in explaining the mystery of why eminent people who are substantial in their own right report so favourably on encounters with the Queen and Prince Philip while being unable because of the convention of not reporting private conversations to say just why. Ms Bradford is entertainingly forthcoming while properly diplomatic on the deficiencies of the lesser royals who are of any importance -- Prince Charles and Lord Mountbatten, for example -- and fills out the hagiography surrounding the Queen Mother with illuminating detail on her amusing inconsistencies. The one quibble I have is with the discussion of various constitutional niceties. Conceivably Ms Bradford's sources in the British and Commonwealth bureaus are as vague as the observations Ms Bradford makes on such matters as the status of Papua and New Guinea prior to their Independence in 1975 (Papua was indeed a British possession, albeit administered by Australia; New Guinea was an Australian UN Trust Territory) or Canada and Australia's respective evolving sovereignty. But these are indeed quibbles and detract only slightly from the overall excellence of the biography. Ms Bradford is a gifted writer and scholar of compelling and persuasive authority and has a mellifluous prose style. One wishes she might now turn her hand to subjects of more weight than the Queen, King George VI and Jackie Kennedy.

Good biography--but of the celebrity type. Try Ben Pimlott's "The Queen" for more of a look at the political role Elizabeth II has played in her long reign.

This is a very well put together book, well researched and easy to read. I just found much of it very irritating. I think it was possibily because the author was trying extremely hard not to be contraversial or mean about the Queen. I would have liked a more indepth review of the mind of the woman who has led such an amazing life (and ruined her children's lives by refusing to live in the real world). The author is critical of QE2 in that she does put duty before family, but this was not explored deeply enough. I am no major royal supporter, interested in the history more than anything and this book is a great record of QE2's life but I felt that this book was too "naice", not gutsy enough and basically portrayed QE2 as a shallow, cold, personality challenged, protocol obsessive woman. While some of the above comments probably suit her, there must be more to her