The Crown: The Inside Story
by Robert Lacy
Allen & Unwin

Launched in November last year, the Netflix drama of the current monarchy The Crown was hugely successful. Season 1 of The Crown is already on DVD and Blu-ray and the controversial second season commences on Netfiix on 8 December. The Crown: The Inside History is published to coincide with the second season of The Crown and has photographs from the royal family and of the era portrayed intermixed with stills from the television series.

- Advertisement -

This is a very intimate exploration of the difficulties in Queen Elizabeth II’s early years. It starts in 1947 when King George VI realizes he is gravely ill and his daughter Elizabeth is just about to marry Phillip of Greece, Lieutenant Phillip Mountbatten. Five years later, Elizabeth was crowned and at the age of 25 and she found herself at the head of a global institution.

In the shadow of the war, the new monarch faced her own challenges as her mother doubted her marriage; her uncle in exile doubted her abilities and her husband resented the sacrifice of his career and family name … and possibly had an affair. Also her rebellious sister Margaret had embarked on a love affair that threatened the centuries-old links between the Church and the Crown.

Ten dramatic event-filled years of history are crammed into just 10 hours of television, telling the story of how Britain’s longest reigning monarch drew on every ounce of resolve to ensure that the Crown always came out on top. Royal biographer Robert Lacy has produced a hard-covered book that adds in-depth details to the events in the series and goes off at tangents to supply interesting and sometimes scandalous information. What a fantastic Christmas gift.

Lezly Herbert