The Queen: a Biography of Queen Elizabeth II - Hardcover

For the first time, Ben Pimlott (‘the best writer of political biography new writing’, Andrew Marr, Independent) treats the Queen seriously as the subject of historical biography.

Using a wide range of new sources, including interviews, diaries and letters,he examines in depth the woman who has been Head of State for over forty years, the influences that formed her and the ideas she represents.

Ben Pimlott's biography of the Queen has established itself as the definitive account of her life and reign. Using a range of new sources, including papers from the Royal Archives, diaries, letters and interviews, he treats Elizabeth II with the detachment and rigour he has applied in his prize-winning biographies of leading politicians. Scholarly, provocative and often entertaining, 'The Queen' is a vitally important book for all who care about public life in Britain – past, present and to come.

"This book is a strikingly impressive achievement. Professor Pimlott has shown what wit, scholarship and a wide-ranging historical imagination can do with a subject that must initially have seemed unpromising. There will not be a better royal biography for many years."
PHILIP ZIEGLER, 'Daily Telegraph'

"The book we have needed for a long time...Pimlott has surpassed the standard life-and-times biographical genre. He sets the Queen beautifully in the context of each shifting period of her reign...There will be no better biography of Elizabeth II as a figure of state until her official one appears – and perhaps not even then."
PETER HENNESSY, 'Independent on Sunday'

"Pimlott has succeeded triumphantly in his unlikely project. He has written a book which can be enjoyed and admired by people who would never have imagined reading any previous royal biography whose subject happens to be not a Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer, but Queen."
JOHN CAMPBELL, 'Independent'

"Ben Pimlott has carried out an extraordinarily difficult task with great skill. Never is he obsequious or snide...he has told a sad story with authority and insight. Within this biography lurks a requiem of a monarchy teetering on the brink of irrelevance."
CHRISTOPHER BEAUMAN, 'Ham and High'

"This is an important and stimulating book which even literary republicans can read with pleasure."
ANTONIA FRASER, 'Guardian'