Queen Mary 1867-1953 [Paperback]

James Pope-Hennessy (Author)

Book Description

Series: Phoenix Press | Publication Date: October 2000

As official biographer, the author had access to private papers which helped unfold the moving story of Princess May of Teck's impoverished childhood, her significant reign and her old age as the much admired Queen Dowager; she saw her fiancee, husband and three sons die, and another abdicate before her own death in 1953.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Pope-Hennessy was a writer of unusual range and beguilingly fluent style. He was born in 1916 and educated at Downside and Balliol College, Oxford. From 1947 to 1949 he was literary editor of The Spectator. By then, he had already decided that writing was his vocation, and for the rest of his life he earned his living by the pen. He died in 1974.

Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix Press (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1842120328
• ISBN-13: 978-1842120323
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,158,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful biography, December 21, 2000

By 

John D. Cofield - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Queen Mary 1867-1953 (Paperback)

I am so glad to see James Pope-Hennessey's Queen Mary in print again after so many years. This is the official biography of the present Queen's grandmother, originally published in 1959 or 1960. Most official biographies are dull. Queen Mary is not. It accomplishes that which all biographies should desire: not just a bare record of the subject's life, but an evocation of the subject's world. Every home of Queen Mary is elegantly described. Her travels in Italy and elsewhere and her visits to the homes of relations in England and in Germany are exhaustively but not boringly documented. Pope-Hennessey's prose is stately, almost eighteenth century, but always lucid and often witty. My favorite sections of the book are those dealing with Queen Mary's life before her marriage, when she was a morganatic princess with few prospects. Her often difficult and embarrassing early life made her a suitable prospect for a bride for the Duke of Clarence and Avondale, second in line to the British throne. The Duke, or Eddy as he was known in the family, was a difficult young man with embarrassing habits (since this is an official biography written under the auspices of Buckingham Palace, Pope-Hennessey was necessarily circumspect about these habits. You will not find a discussion of the Cleveland Street scandal here, for instance). When Eddy died a few weeks after his engagement was announced, his fiancee (and the British Empire) was transferred to his more suitable younger brother George, Duke of York. Although the circumstances of her marriage and ascent into the highest levels of British royalty were a little unusual, Queen Mary was the epitome of royal dignity for the rest of her life as Duchess of York, Princess of Wales, Queen Consort, and finally Queen Dowager. Pope-Hennessey's coverage of the Queen's personal life is a bit limited,once again due to the limits placed on an official historian. Her relationships with her husband and children, especially the Duke of Windsor, are not dealt with in much detail, and her personal peccadillos, such as her penchant for dropping broad hints about presents she would like, are not covered at all. But there are plenty of unofficial sources if you are looking for that sort of thing about Queen Mary and her family. Pope-Hennessey is the best choice for those looking for a beautifully written description of life in a vanished world.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best biographies of a Royal, July 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Queen Mary 1867-1953 (Paperback)

I've owned this biography for ten years, and I seem to go back and re-read it once a year. It's the kind of book that's so well-written, you can start reading it from any chapter and get hooked. I don't think you have to be a Royalty-fan to enjoy it. Queen Mary was a fascinating person & her life was so interesting, to say the least. It's got so much detail, and the author makes you understand the circumstances which made Queen Mary the person she was. This book was published in 1957, which was only a few years after her death and a more reticent time, so don't expect any delving into Queen Mary's unfortunate habit of "guilting" people into giving her their historical knicknacks, etc. for her vast collections. (Or about her shady dealings in the matter of acquiring Empress Marie of Russia's jewel collection from the Empress' daughters at a bargain price.) For the Royal buff, there is also a wealth of information on Queen Victoria, Edward VII, Alexandra,et al. Make this a cornerstone of your Royalty (or just good biography) collection & you won't be disappointed.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magisterial, Majestic, and Marvelously Entertaining, December 13, 2004

By 

G. Pillson "georgiepillson" (Tilling on Rye) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen Mary 1867-1953 (Paperback)

While it's not the fashion these days for biographers to betray afffection for their subjects, James Pope-Hennessy clearly held his in the highest regard. Although born into the fringes of Germano-British royalty, the one-time May of Teck was, by the end of her long life, an icon of British life (she pops up in the oddest places, from a cameo as a waving hand in Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" to a recent BBC film in which she is portrayed by Miranda Richardson as the mother of what we would now call a "differently abled" child).

Pope-Hennessy's biography is at once a respectful portrait of the Queen and a fascinating glimpse into royal life between the Crimean and Second World Wars. It bristles with colorful supporting characters, from the spiteful Lady Geraldine Somerset (whose fly-on-the-wall perspective as a lady-in-waiting gave ample room for her spleen) to the Queen's doting aunt, the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg Strelitz, to the exceedingly patient Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, who had the dubious honor of hosting the elderly queen during her wartime evacuation from London. Presiding over them all is the vast and benevolent Princess Mary Adelaide, the Queen's mother and a memorable figure in her own right. The author bids farewell to the Princess in a lyric passage that would seem at home in Woolf and that, as a teenager first reading the book, made me weep.

With lengthy excerpts from letters and other primary sources, unfailingly acute and frequently amusing observations of the foibles of royalty and those around them, and, in the end, a remarkably balanced view of the Queen, this book is both a model of how an authorized biography can be written and an invaluable resource for those interested not just in the life of one woman but in the times in which she lived.