A Voyage Around the Queen

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

?THE TIMES and SUNDAY TIMES BEST MEMOIR OF 2024 … ‘GENIUS’

A BOOK OF THE YEAR for the SPECTATOR, MAIL ON SUNDAY, NEW STATESMAN, FINANCIAL TIMES, INDEPENDENT, TELEGRAPH, SUNDAY EXPRESS and THE TABLET.

From one of the funniest writers of our time, the award-winning author of One Two Three Four and Ma’am Darling turns his attention to Queen Elizabeth II in an unforgettable and fascinating biography.

‘A crown jewel among royal biographies’ OBSERVER

‘Extraordinarily original, enlightening and fresh’ SPECTATOR

‘Absolutely fascinating’ Ruth Langsford, LOOSE WOMEN

‘A very unusual masterpiece’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

‘Brilliantly funny and well-researched’ FINANCIAL TIMES

Virginia Woolf compared her to a caterpillar; Anne Frank kept pictures of her on the wall of her annex; Jimi Hendrix played her tune; Haile Selassie gave her a gold tiara; Dirk Bogarde watched Death in Venice with her; Andy Warhol envied her fame; Donald Trump offended her; E.M. Forster confessed he would have married her, if only she had been a boy.

Queen Elizabeth II was famous for longer than anyone who has ever lived. When people spoke of her, they spoke of themselves; when they dreamed of her, they dreamed of themselves. She mirrored their hopes and anxieties. To the optimist, she seemed an optimist; to the pessimist, a pessimist; to the awestruck, charismatic; and to the cynical, humdrum. Though by nature reserved and unassuming, her presence could fill presidents and rock gods with terror. For close to a century, she inhabited the psyche of a nation.

Combining biography, essays, cultural history, dream diaries, travelogue and satire, the bestselling and award-winning author of Ma’am Darling and One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of this most public yet private of sovereigns.

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‘An unconventional tribute that offers a snapshot of almost a century of social history with a mix of royal insanity, and superior anecdotes, from farts and corgis to Paul McCartney and poets laureate’ THE TIMES and SUNDAY TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2024

‘An enthralling reverie on memory, identity, coincidence and meaning – testing, teasing, charming, moving and deceptively wise’ RORY STEWART

‘An entertaining and revealing digest … fascinating … Craig Brown has captured something essential about Britain’s curious relationship with royalty’ TLS

‘Completely and utterly brilliant and exquisitely funny and fascinating. This book is, dare I say, majestic. Craig Brown has no peers – I would curtsey to him if I met him’ MARINA HYDE

‘Wonderfully readable … At once sympathetic but clear-eyed, kind but sharp’ NEW STATESMAN

‘Brown is as sharp and dryly funny as his subject’ EVENING STANDARD

‘You wouldn’t think the world needed another book about Queen Elizabeth – but how wrong you’d be. Craig Brown’s wholly original and enthralling biography is absolute heaven from start to finish’ INDIA KNIGHT

‘Craig Brown continues to reinvent the art of biography… utterly fascinating’ JASON COWLEY

Craig Brown’s book One Two Three Four won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction in 2020.

Craig Brown has been writing the parodic celebrity diary for Private Eye since 1989. He has written for a wide variety of publications, including the Daily Mail, New York Review of Books, New Statesman, Guardian and Spectator. His books include the New York Times bestseller One on One; One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction; and Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret, which won the James Tait Black Award and The South Bank Show Sky Arts Award and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the US. He lives by the sea in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, with his wife Frances Welch; they have two children and three grandchildren.