Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother - Alan Hamilton

A fascinating, often moving, always authoritative illustrated account of Britain's best-loved royal

The Queen Mother's life spans the 20th century. She was born, in August 1900, into a world where Queen Victoria still reigned and Britain was in the full pomp of its imperial heyday. She has witnessed a century of turbulence and change: two world wars, the end of empire, the atomic age, social and scientific revolution on an unprecedented scale. Yet she has been no mere witness to history. Her role in the Abdication of Edward VIII was pivotal, while in the Second World War, as Queen Consort to George VI, she became a staunch symbol of Britain's implaccable refusal to give way to Hitler.

Her talent has been to be the grandest lady in the land without ever appearing so, her greatest contribution to the British throne, her personality. Today, the greater her age, the more remarkable she seems, her charm, dignity and humanity increasing with age rather than diminishing.

The Queen Mother is a lavish celebration of this remarkable woman, one which not only pays tribute to her life but places it firmly in its historical context. Written by Alan Hamilton, Royal Correspondent of The Times, and illustrated by more than 300 photographs from the paper's immense archive, a number never published before, it is a fascinating, often moving, always authoritative account of her life and times.