On the centenary of her birth, The Essential Elizabeth is a delightful, intimate new portrait of the late Queen from bestselling biographer and royal commentator Robert Hardman, which is full of fresh details about this extraordinary woman. As daughter, wife, mother and Sovereign, Elizabeth II 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?’ No one has written more authoritatively on Elizabeth II than Robert Hardman. Who better to answer that question? The only biographer to have interviewed all the senior members of the Royal Family, some of them several times, Hardman 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 pull her in different directions but never derailed her; a global stateswoman who wielded her great authority with charm and understatement. Authoritative, poignant and gloriously entertaining, The Essential Elizabeth will explain why she was not merely the most famous woman in the world. She was one of history’s all-time greats.
