Elizabeth II : In Private. In Public. The Inside Story by Robert Hardman

Published for her centenary, Elizabeth II is a brilliant new portrait of the late Queen, full of fresh revelations. 

As daughter, wife, mother and sovereign, Elizabeth lived fascinating parallel lives, both in private and in public. But she remained something of a mystery – beloved, even revered, modest yet daunting, naturally shy but globally recognizable, inscrutable and also authentic. She was grand but so familiar that we felt we knew her.

Yet we would always be left asking the same question: ‘What’s she really like?’The only biographer to have interviewed all the senior members of the Royal Family, some of them several times, no one has written more authoritatively on Queen Elizabeth II than Robert Hardman. Here he has crafted a gripping story of drama, devotion, triumph, tragedy, humour and conflict; of an outwardly stoical, inwardly complex woman whose love of family, love of country and duty to the Crown might have pulled her in different directions but never derailed her; a global stateswoman who wielded her great authority with charm and understatement. Elizabeth II will explain why the Queen was not merely the most famous woman in the world.