Drawing on numerous interviews and never-before-revealed documents, acclaimed biographer Sally Bedell Smith pulls back the curtain to show in intimate detail the public and private lives of Queen Elizabeth II, who has led her country and Commonwealth through the wars and upheavals of the last sixty years with unparalleled composure, intelligence, and grace.

In 1563, Catholics are hunted by Queen Elizabeths men. William Harley, Clarenceux King of Armes is a Catholic herald in her majestys court and worries that his secret will be discovered. But one night an old friend, Henry Machyn, recklessly breaks curfew to ask Clarenceux to safeguard his volume of "seditious and heretical writings," telling his friend that the "fate of two queens depends on" the project, 13 years in the making. If anything should...

In the heart of Elizabethan England, Richard Shakespeare dreams of a glittering career in one of the London playhouses, a world dominated by his older brother, William. But he is a penniless actor, making ends meet through a combination of a beautiful face, petty theft and a silver tongue. As William's star rises, Richard's onetime gratitude is souring and he is sorely tempted to abandon family loyalty. So when a priceless manuscript goes missing,...

"A definitive portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the seventieth anniversary of her reign by a renowned royal biographer. Shy but with a steely self-confidence; inscrutable despite ten decades in the public eye; unflappable; devout; indulgent; outwardly reserved, inwardly passionate; unsentimental; inquisitive; young at heart. All of these describe Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned through more seismic social change than any monarch...

A groundbreaking biography of Elizabeth I revealing for the first time the woman behind the polished veneer as she confronts challenges at home and abroad: war against the Catholic powers of France and Spain, revolt in Ireland, an economic crisis that triggered riots in the streets of London, and a conspiracy to place her cousin Mary Queen of Scots on her throne.

In the early sixteen-hundreds, two star-crossed assassins, nineteen-year-old Toby and seventeen-year-old Kit, go undercover as actors in a Shakespeare play in a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth.

Anne-Marie Duff stars as the shrewd and captivating queen who defended her throne amidst an atmosphere of plotting and intrigue, torture and murder, The Virgin Queen is a riveting drama that explores the fascinating 44-year-reign of Elizabeth I.