NCW Libraries

Acclaimed historian A. N. Wilson gives a sweeping, definitive biography of one of the most recognizable yet enigmatic monarchs of all time. The longest reigning British monarch and female sovereign in history, Queen Victoria was a figure of profound paradox who has mystified historians for over a century. Now in this magisterial biography, A. N. Wilson rebukes the conventional wisdom about her life-that she was merely a "funny little woman in a bonnet"...

This is the first major biography for a generation of a truly formidable king, a man born to rule England, who believed that it was his right to rule all of Britain. As a consequence, his reign was one of the most dramatic and important of the entire Middle Ages, leading to war and conquest on an unprecedented scale.

Chronicles the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II, detailing her childhood, her ascension to the throne, her relationship with her children, and her reign at the head of the British monarchy.

"Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro shows how the tumultuous events in England in 1606 affected Shakespeare and shaped the three great tragedies he wrote that year--King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. In the years leading up to 1606, since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the arrival in England of her successor, King James of Scotland, Shakespeare's great productivity had ebbed, and it may have seemed to some that his prolific...