C‘is who looks The Crown to learn about the history of English royalty, those who dream of Buckingham Palace tiaras and those who have not yet recovered from Megxit. The truth is that the English monarchy continues to be the most elegant, controversial and irresistible reality show on the planet. Behind the impeccable protocol hide passions, rivalries, political strategies and characters that seem to have come out of a novel. And in fact, often, they end up in books. From pop curiosities about Elizabeth II to jewels symbolizing royal power, up to the women who changed the destiny of Charles III and the hypotheses of a Great Britain without a monarchy, these four titles offer different ways to enter the world of the Windsors.
1/ Books about English royalty: The Queen in pocket by Eva Grippa and Ivan Canu
With The Queen in Pocket, Eva Grippa and the illustrator Ivan Canu construct a surprising, ironic and pop portrait of Elizabeth II. The book was created on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of the sovereign and collects one hundred anecdotes and curiosities that show the more human side of the most famous queen of the twentieth century. It is not the classic celebratory biography: it alternates historical episodes with details of customs, court rituals and small private eccentricities.
Ivan Canu’s illustrations transform the book into a sort of visual atlas of contemporary royal culture. A perfect manual for those who want to approach the figure of Elizabeth II lightly but without superficiality, discovering how much the sovereign has become a pop icon as well as an institutional one.
2/ Books on English royalty: The Queen’s Jewels by Marina Minelli
If there is an elegant way to tell the story of the British monarchy, is to do it through her jewels. Marina Minelli, one of the leading Italian experts on royal houses, in The Queen’s jewels accompanies the reader inside the extraordinary collection of Elizabeth II. Tiaras, brooches, necklaces and tiaras become tools to tell about dynastic marriages, court rivalries, wars, inheritances and political transformations. Each jewel holds a story: behind a sparkling crown, family dramas, diplomatic strategies and forgotten female figures often emerge.
Minelli does not limit himself to the aesthetic description of the jewels, but uses them to explain the symbolic language of the English monarchy, where even an apparently decorative detail can become a political message.
4 books to read about English royalty
3/ Books on English royalty: Exit Queen – Checkback to the Queen by Marco Ubezio and Francesco Spartà
With Exit Queen – Check to the QueenMarco Ubezio and Francesco Spartà instead they choose the path of political fiction. The novel imagines a scenario as provocative as it is plausible: a referendum on the British monarchy during the final years of Elizabeth II’s reign. The question at the center of the book is simple but very powerful: Can the monarchy really survive in the era of populism and direct democracy?
Between institutional tensions, economic crises and media clashes, the novel constructs a political thriller that reflects on the fragility of the symbolic power of the Crown. Despite being a narrative work, the book raises the question of the role of the Windsors in modern society.
4/ Books on English royalty: Carlo’s women by Ilaria Grillini
(Photo by KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
With Carlo’s women, Ilaria Grillini finally moves the attention on Charles III and on the female figures who marked his public and private life. From the complex relationship with Diana Spencer to the bond with Camilla Parker Bowles, the book tells how the sovereign’s romantic relationships influenced the very image of the monarchy.
More than just a crime story, the book explores the media and political weight of the women around Charles: often decisive figures in shaping the public perception of the royal family. Through loves, scandals and reconciliations, the portrait of a monarchy emerges which in recent decades has had to deal with the constant judgment of public opinion and the global media.
4 books on English royalty, a pop fresco
The 4 must-read books of the week all show very different perspectives on the British monarchy: the pop and illustrated tale of Elizabeth II, the historical fascination of royal jewels, the political dystopia of an anti-monarchist referendum and the more human and sentimental side of Charles III. Put together, they make up a complete mosaic of the English Crown: an ancient institution that continues to reinvent itself through history, pop culture, politics and media entertainment.
The QUEEN in POCKET (Eva Grippa and Ivan Canu)
In the collective imagination, Elizabeth II will forever be the queen in pastel shades, with the iconic handbag clutched to her arm and three rows of pearls around her neck. On the head, sometimes the shining royal crown, other times matching hats with impeccable taste. In the year that marks the centenary of the birth of the most unforgettable of queens, this book throws open the doors of the palace (and wardrobes) of the royal family, revealing a very different sovereign from the one we thought we knew. One hundred voices, between unexpected revelations and unseemly twists, tell the hidden side of an icon known only on the surface. Eccentric habits, secret passions, alliances and nemeses, betrayals, unregal scandals and irresistibly hilarious quotes reveal new fragments of an intimate and domestic universe, giving us the portrait of a reckless but also profoundly human sovereign. Authors, Eva Grippa, journalist and royal watcher, and Ivan Canu, illustrator and designer with a liking for hm The Queen.
The story of the most famous monarchy in the world and its most charismatic characters told through jewels which not only testify to the prestige and splendor of the dynasty but are the tangible emblem of the royal function.
Beyond their often immense intrinsic value, jewels transcend their purely ornamental function, but become a tangible emblem of the magnificence of a sovereign and his lineage and a symbol of the assertion of an authority which, starting from Queen Victoria, goes beyond the pure and simple exercise of power to become a sacred duty. What is now one of the most important collections in existence today has a relatively recent origin and, due to a family dispute, only a few pieces are prior to the first half of the nineteenth century. The jewels worn by Elizabeth II in carrying out her official and institutional role have become so famous that they entered the collective imagination together with her and therefore identified with all the symbolic aspects of the monarchy, of royal representation and of her role as head of state. Often confused with the “crown jewels” kept at the Tower of London, the Queen’s jewels actually belong in part to the Crown (i.e. they pass like all the objects and goods of the Royal Collection from monarch to monarch who is temporarily their owner and therefore custodian) but for the majority they are the sovereign’s private heritage. These precious accessories, which testify to the tastes of an era and also to the exceptional skill of British creators in the decorative arts sector, have the most disparate, sometimes even daring, origins. Their relevance goes far beyond the pure and simple material value, they tell the story of characters such as George IV and his extravagant coronation, they speak of the passion for art of Prince Albert who personally designed whimsical tiaras for his wife Victoria, they tell of how Queen Mary was able to put together an extraordinary collection of precious stones (most of which have now passed to her granddaughter) and also thanks to their skilful use she managed to build her majestic image and therefore the image of the dynasty. The jewels recall unhappy princesses and royal brides, revolutions and great changes but above all they have played and still play an enormously important role in the representation of the monarchy and in defining the image of the sovereign. A historian and journalist, the author, Marina Minelli, has established herself as one of Italy’s leading experts on European royal families. In 2009 he created AltezzaReale.com, the first Italian blog dedicated to the royals. On Instagram (@marina_minelli_), she publishes content dedicated to European dynasties every day.
Exit Queen – Check to the Queen (Marco Ubezio and Francesco Spartà)
Exit Queen is the book to read right now. It is not the “usual” celebratory book on the English royals. But a dystopian novel somewhere between a political thriller and a modern fairy tale. At the center of the volume, co-authored by Marco Ubezio and Francesco Spartà, is the hypothesis of a referendum on the British monarchy during the last years of the reign of Elizabeth II, against the backdrop of an increasingly disunited Kingdom, also impoverished by the post-Brexit effects, which sees the sovereign confronting a populist Labor prime minister.
Queen Elizabeth, flanked by the specter of Prince Philip and some other somewhat faded members of the Royal Family, finds herself dealing with a prime minister who, driven by the will-o’-the-wisp of populism, would like to put the Crown in the attic. The Queen, in an attempt to save the Crown, is surrounded by her private secretary, a Canadian who collects men in the worst clubs in London, and a thirteen-year-old she met at a public event who soon becomes a sort of nephew-in-law, also due to his vague resemblance to Prince Harry as a child. It is a political novel so current that it seems suspended between reality and prophecy.
The female figures were fundamentaland at the same time bulkyin Carlo’s life IIIsometimes they have theminfluenced the choices, others haveobscured the events, both public andprivate. Women as important as the mother,Elizabeth IIsister, Anna, withwhere he grew up, his much-loved grandmother,the Queen Mother, the two wives, Dianaand Camilla, and two daughters-in-law, Catherine and Meghan. Investigating the relationship thatCarlo III he had with each of them, GRillini, a journalist who has always been interestedto the life of royalty, outlines thefigure of a cultured, intelligent man,with cutting-edge ideas, committed tobring the issues to the center of the debateof ecology and changeclimate. A sovereign who today seeks tokeep the monarchy abreast of the times,despite having to deal with problems ofhealth and manage family disputes, related onesto his son Harry and his brother, the former Duke ofYork. To complete the portrait of a king, ofwhere not everything is yet known, contributethe testimonies and anecdotes ofprominent Italian figures who have itknown: Giuliano Amato, GiulioAndreotti, Francesco Cossiga, the princesVanni Calvello Mantegna, the entrepreneur Federico Marchetti, to name a few.An accurate book which features a Carlo III unpublishedand multi-faceted.
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