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  • Published: 8 July 2023
  • ISBN: 9780099590125
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 576
  • RRP: $37.99
Categories:

George V

Never a Dull Moment



The prequel to The Crown: the first truly candid portrait of George V and Mary, the Queen's grandparents and creators of the modern monarchy by one of our finest biographers

The prequel to The Crown: the first truly candid portrait of George V and Mary, the Queen's grandparents and creators of the modern monarchy

Shortlisted for the Elizabeth Longford Historical Biography prize and the History Reclaimed Book of the Year prize

The lasting reputation of George V is for dullness. However throughout his reign, the monarch navigated a constitutional crisis, the First World War, the fall of thirteen European monarchies and the rise of Bolshevism. The suffragette Emily Davison threw herself under his horse at the Derby, he refused asylum to his cousin the Tsar Nicholas II and he facilitated the first Labour government.

How this supposedly limited man steered the Crown through so many perils is a gripping tale. With unprecedented access to the Royal archives, Jane Ridley has been able to reassess the many myths associated with this dramatic period for the first time.

'Wonderful... Never a dull paragraph' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times

'Magnificent... An evocative and touching portrait of a surprisingly impressive man' Philip Hensher, Spectator

'A big, beautiful beast of a book. Fair, thorough and unexpectedly funny' Lucy Worsley

  • Published: 8 July 2023
  • ISBN: 9780099590125
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 576
  • RRP: $37.99
Categories:

About the author

Jane Ridley

Jane Ridley is Professor of History at Buckingham University, where she teaches a course on biography. Her books include The Young Disraeli, acclaimed by Robert Blake as definitive; and a highly praised study of the architect Edwin Lutyens and his relationship with his troubled wife, which won the Duff Cooper Prize in 2003. Her most recent biography, Bertie: A Life of Edward VII was a Sunday Times bestseller and one of the most critically acclaimed books of its year. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Ridley writes book reviews for the Spectator and other newspapers, and has also appeared on radio and several television documentaries. She lives in London and Scotland.

Also by Jane Ridley

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Praise for George V

Jane Ridley has written the definitive biography of George V. Sharply observed, revealing and very absorbing, 'dull George' and his dutiful wife, Mary, emerge in a new light as the monarchies of Europe crumble around them and the horrors of the early twentieth century unfold. At a pivotal time in the history of our democracy, with world leaders tested to their limits, Jane gives a gripping and authoritative account of what was happening behind palace doors

Deborah Cadbury

A big beautiful beast of a book. Fair, thorough and unexpectedly funny, it won't be surpassed for decades

Lucy Worsley

There have been few monarchs quite as discreet and inscrutable as George V . . . There's much to enjoy here about George's nerdy, hypochondriacal and rather humourless character. Yet, as Ridley portrays with great fairness, he somehow managed to be a king loved and revered by the people . . . Ridley has a wonderful ability to push the story along, luring us with salient details . . . riveting . . . Never a dull paragraph

Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times

Jane Ridley is a consummate storyteller and superb researcher. With a funny, analytical, sympathetic touch she both conveys the immediacy of history and invests those elusive, long-ago events and mysterious, long-dead people with a humanity recognisable to us all

Juliet Nicolson

A 21st-century [biography] was overdue . . . and nobody could do it better than the immensely experienced Jane Ridley . . . The Windsors have always been emotionally handicapped, and in this respect George V was their prize exhibit

Max Hastings, Sunday Times

A truly inspirational new biography of George V

A N Wilson, The Times

The best royal biography since James Pope-Hennessy's Queen Mary (1959) . . . rivetingly interesting . . . sheds an entirely new light on both George V and his consort . . . Jane Ridley persuades us that their tactful handling of the many crises of the reign paved the way for the stable constitutional monarchy that persists to this day

A. N. Wilson, Times Literary Supplement

Splendid

Craig Brown, Daily Mail

Superb . . . a perfectly candid portrait of our present Queen's grandfather: demythologised, certainly, and with spades called spades, but not trivialised, and not denied full credit for the massive amount he achieved . . . Ridley's convincing thesis [is] that George V was the true begetter of modern constitutional monarchy . . . this book makes it clear we were lucky to have him

Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph

A magnificent new life -- wonderfully funny, from its winning subtitle onwards, and full of human sympathy and understanding . . . an evocative and touching portrait of a surprisingly impressive man

Philip Hensher, Spectator

A superb book; arguably it is the best biography of George V... immensely readable, wonderfully researched

Michael Nash, Eastern Daily Press

Jane Ridley's George V is so sparklingly incisive about both the king and Queen Mary that it almost counts as a double biography. The pheasant-shooting, stamp-collecting, moderating monarch and his bejewelled, shopaholic consort are beautifully portrayed in all their complexities

Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Spectator, *Books of the Year*

Superb

Iona McLaren, Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year*

Most biographers would shy away from the notoriously dull George V. Not so Ridley, whose biography of the stamp-collecting, bird-shooting king is top-notch

Robbie Millen, The Times, *Books of the Year*

Ridley is good on the telling detail . . . lively and unstuffy

Kate Hubbard, The Oldie

[George V] is candid, well written, based on wide research and full of piquant detail, some of it new

Piers Bredon, Literary Review

This deeply researched biography casts new light upon the misunderstood monarch and his Queen, Mary of Teck. Illuminating, intensely readable

Rose Shepard, Saga Magazine, *Christmas Gift Guide 2021*

Sparkling

Tony Rennell, Daily Mail Biographies of the Year

Riveting... Ridley brings new insight to George's personal life... Well-researched and entertaining, this book offers a vluable reassessment of a king who shaped modern Britain

Heather Jones, BBC History Magazine

[A] graceful, funny book... Ridley offers fine-grained and astute sketches of members of the king's entourage as they came and went

Michael Ledger-Lomas, London Review of Books

Outstanding . . . richly entertaining

Geoffrey Wheatcroft, New York Review of Books