John Guy is an award-winning historian of Tudor England. A Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, he is the author of Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart, a major international bestseller that won the Whitbread Award and the Marsh Biography Award and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. His other books include A Daughter's Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg; Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel; the biography of Henry VIII for the Penguin Monarchs series and a landmark, bestselling history of Tudor England.
“A fresh, thrilling portrait… Guy’s Elizabeth is deliciously
human.”
–Stacy Schiff, The New York Times Book Review
“A superb book. . . Guy persuades us that pretty much everything we
think we know about Elizabeth is wrong. . . Considering that
she was a Protestant in a Catholic-dominated Europe, a woman in a
male-dominated world, the daughter of one parent who had been
executed by the other. . . [she] should be seen as the most
remarkable individual to have worn a European crown between
Charlemagne and Napoleon.”
–Andrew Roberts, The Wall Street Journal
“Guy is a master of the early modern archive: few historians are
better equipped to navigate the tangled skein of Elizabethan
records. . . .his careful work with documents known and unknown,
scattered throughout Europe’s archives, allows him to paint a novel
portrait of a complex—maybe even unknowable—queen.”
--The Guardian
“[A] fresh, illuminating portrait of one of England’s greatest
monarchs…Guy uses Elizabeth’s handwritten letters and other rarely
exploited primary sources to impressive effect.”
–The Financial Times
“An illuminating study of England’s most revered monarch. Guy, a
leading authority on the Tudor period, uses Elizabeth’s handwritten
letters and other rarely exploited primary sources to impressive
effect.”
– Financial Times, Best Book of the Year
"Significant, forensic and myth-busting, John Guy inspires total
confidence in a narrative which is at once pacey and rich in
detail."
-- Anna Whitelock, TLS
“John Guy's Elizabeth presents a beautifully rounded portrait of
both the woman and the queen. Thanks to Guy's prodigious use of
previously untapped material, we see, for the very first time, the
full panoply of ambition and insecurity, plotting and deceit that
marked the middle years of her reign. This is a masterful
biography.”
– Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire
"A gripping story of Queen Elizabeth’s last years, authoritatively
researched and engaging recounted by the leading Tudor historian of
our age."
–James Shapiro, author of The Year of Lear
“This is a very good read, a vivid and fascinating warts-and-all
portrait of the ageing Elizabeth, backed by meticulous
research.”
--Claire Tomalin, author of Jane Austen
"Magisterial... the definitive account of that era for the present
generation"
-Country Life
“Outstanding. . . This page-turning book is history, biography,
scholarship personified, and a crystal-clear look at Elizabeth in
the war years that erases the myths and presents the real woman.
Absolutely one of the best biographies of Elizabeth
ever.”
–Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)
"Guy gives readers a fuller view of the confident, experienced, and
adaptable queen whose long, eventful reign--one sprinkled with
"Kafkaesque elements"--continues to fascinate."
–Publisher's Weekly
"Meticulously researched and highly readable. . . Readers will be
fascinated by Guy's careful psychological portrait of the aging
monarch in the sunset of her reign."
–Library Journal
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