A Voyage Around the Queen: A Biography of Queen Elizabeth II

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From one of the funniest writers of our time, the award winning and Sunday Times bestselling author of One Two Three Four and Ma'am Darling turns his attention to Queen Elizabeth II in an unforgettable and fascinating biography.
She was the most famous person on earth and first appeared on the cover of Time magazine at the age of three. Nowadays, only those over the age of 100 would have any chance of recalling a time when she was not a fixture of British identity.

Her countenance has been reproduced in photographs, on stamps, on the notes and coins of thirty different currencies more than any since Jesus. Over the course of her ninety-six years, she was likely introduced to a greater number of different people than anyone who has ever lived. Many can remember what they said to her, but not a word of what she said to them.

Until now the curious tactic employed by her biographers has been to ignore what is interesting and to concentrate on what is not. Craig Brown overturns this formula, bringing his kaleidoscopic approach to one of the most guarded women who ever lived, examining The Queen in her time through a succession of interlocking prisms, with hilarious wit and sharp social commentary.

Reviews

Praise for Craig Brown:

The most screamingly funny living writer Barry Humphries, Mail on Sunday

The greatest satirist since Max Beerbohm Elaine Showalter Guardian

Craig Brown's humour will outlive his victims. His journalism is one of the few compensations for being British now David Sexton, Sunday Telegraph

A genius in every instance, the skill of the parodist dwarfs any achievement attributable to his subject Auberon Waugh, Daily Telegraph

He is the comic writer the rest of us admire from afar, and envy beyond the bounds of reason. How does he do it Markus Berkmann, Spectator

Britains wittiest satirist The Times

[Craig Brown] has an acutely attuned comic ear, an unmatched eye for spotting the absurdities of human behaviour and a bloodhound-grade nose for sniffing out phoniness and pretension Mail On Sunday

Author Bio

Craig Brown has been writing the Private Eye celebrity diary since 1989. He has also written parodies for many other publications, including The Daily Telegraph, Vanity Fair, The Times and The Guardian. He is the author of several books, most recently The Lost Diaries and One on One.