I have been waiting to read Jane Ridley’s next book ever since I read Bertie: A Life of Edward VII nine years ago. Royal biography is a strange genre. It requires tact, revelation, a sense of propriety, and knowing wit. Successful authors will be able to parse the evolution of the state without losing sight of the eccentricities of their subject and the role of domestic life in the political story. This blend of emotion and ideas, entertainment and analysis, makes it closer to the novel than many other forms of biography, even though it seems in many ways to be a much more factual, historical, and altogether un-novelistic sub-genre.
George V and Queen Camilla
George V and Queen Camilla
George V and Queen Camilla
I have been waiting to read Jane Ridley’s next book ever since I read Bertie: A Life of Edward VII nine years ago. Royal biography is a strange genre. It requires tact, revelation, a sense of propriety, and knowing wit. Successful authors will be able to parse the evolution of the state without losing sight of the eccentricities of their subject and the role of domestic life in the political story. This blend of emotion and ideas, entertainment and analysis, makes it closer to the novel than many other forms of biography, even though it seems in many ways to be a much more factual, historical, and altogether un-novelistic sub-genre.