The Last Queen
Elizabeth II's Seventy Year Battle to Save the House of Windsor
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A timely and revelatory new biography of Queen Elizabeth (and her family) exploring how the Windsors have evolved and thrived, as the modern world has changed around them.
Clive Irving’s stunning new narrative biography The Last Queen probes the question of the British monarchy’s longevity. In 2021, the Queen Elizabeth II finally appears to be at ease in the modern world, helped by the new generation of Windsors. But through Irving’s unique insight there emerges a more fragile institution, whose extraordinarily dutiful matriarch has managed to persevere with dignity, yet in doing so made a Faustian pact with the media.
The Last Queen is not a conventional biography—and the book is therefore not limited by the traditions of that genre. Instead, it follows Elizabeth and her family’s struggle to survive in the face of unprecedented changes in our attitudes towards the royal family, with the critical eye of an investigative reporter who is present and involved on a highly personal level.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Irving (Pox Britannica) delivers a clear-eyed portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. Covering Elizabeth's life from her father King George VI's 1937 coronation, when she was 11, to her grandson Prince Harry's wedding in 2018, Irving portrays the queen as the daughter, wife, and matriarch of a "patently dysfunctional" royal family. He details scandals over the Duke of Windsor's "flirtation with fascism" in the 1930s and the 1979 public unmasking of retired royal family art curator Anthony Blunt as a Soviet mole, a matter the Windsors had kept secret since his confession in 1964. Irving also examines Elizabeth's relationships with her sister, Princess Margaret, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and the "media feeding frenzy" that proved to be the undoing of her daughter-in-law, Princess Diana. According to Irving, Elizabeth chided journalists to "allow to enjoy her private life," but these words fell on deaf ears as "past customs... vanished overnight." Diana's death jolted Elizabeth, Irving writes, yet she "was never really able to concede the need for change." He reserves his harshest judgment, however, for the monarchy itself: "an institution that seems to be unaware of its wanton profligacy." Irving puts his mark on a familiar story with his confident assessments and insider perspective on the British press. Royal watchers will delight in this richly detailed appraisal of the world's oldest reigning monarch.
