Queen Mary Kindle Edition

This is a wonderful biography, but the print is very small and no photos. I need to find another book with larger printer by the same author.

Fast delivery on a used book in better than expected condition. Thanks again!

An excellent and detailed biography of the woman who would become Queen. Mary (actually May) goes from a somewhat inauspicious start as the child of lesser Royals to becoming the wife of the future King George V and mother of the two men who will be central players of the biggest succession crisis in the history of the monarchy. She was a shy girl who had to learn to be a very public figure while dealing with her personal tragedies. It's also a look at how the monarchy deals with scandal and 'difficult' relations. A very interesting look into a different era. I am finding a few things specifically in the Kindle edition that are annoying (I don't know if these are an issue in the print editions). First, you really need a good family tree to keep who is who straight. There the Duchess of this and the Prince of that and this one's grandmother is that one's cousin and they can all blur together quite easily. It's literally "You can't tell the players without a scorecard" time and the family trees in the Kindle are essentially unreadable and not nearly detailed enough. Second, there are no photos or illustrations. The cover portrait of Queen Mary is literally all you get. It's very annoying to read about a famous portrait of someone or to be given a detailed description of a place and then have to go online to try to find said place or person. Having illustrations within the book or at least as an appendix would have been very useful. Finally, there are a good number of excerpts from letters that are in French or German without any translation given. It's not a word or two, it's entire sentences or paragraphs. It's as if the author assumes that of course any reader of the book is fluent in French and German, so translations are unnecessary. Kindle does have a translate function which works very well, but I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for readers of the print editions to either just skip over whatever is being said or to have to stop reading and go search for a translation online. A translation either within the text or as a footnote should have been provided for the reader.

James Pope-Hennessey's Queen Mary is a thoroughly researched, well-written, masterpiece royal biography. It was written and published in the 1950s when official biographers rarely spoke against their subjects, so there aren't a lot of WOW moments or royal family secrets exposed in this book. However, that is not to say that is isn't a terrific read and one that I do highly recommend. Her childhood is meticulously covered, and it makes you understand (to an extent) her personality and her quirks later in her life.One thing I WOULD recommend to a VERY interested reader is that if you are REALLY interested in Queen Mary's life, read Pop-Hennessy book IN TANDEM with Anne Edwards' biography, "Matriarch". By reading the two books in tandem, you will get more of a sense of the woman herself and the context in which events occurred. Since much of Pope-Hennessey's work is based on QM's actual diaries, the things she didn't talk about or think about often aren't mentioned in the book. Events surrounding her feeling about her son's abdication are glossed over and Wallis Simpson is hardly given a mention at all.One part of this book that I HIGHLY enjoyed that was very short-- but could easily have it's own book-- is QM's experience during WWII. Not many of QM's life experiences will make you laugh out loud, but her actions and experiences during WWII will probably make you chuckle and wish that you had Julian Fellowes' phone number on speed dial.All in all, it's a great read, and not as dense as I thought it'd be after it first arrived in my mailbox. If you want a more complete portrait of Princess May and Her Royal Highness Queen Mary, then put both this and Matriarch in your shopping cart and read them in tandem (I read a portion of one book, then read up to that same moment in history in the other, then switched, thereby finishing both books at roughly the same time). The two together form a much more well-rounded and more human version of the Queen herself.But, now I'm scratching my head. One reviewer wrote, "but did she have an English accent?" After reading both books..... I DON'T KNOW! But I'm going to hazard a guess... Probably.

Having read the book of the book by Pope-Hennessey, I really wanted to read the book itself and was not disappointed. This wonderfully written biography of Queen Mary was a joy to read from cover to cover.What I found heart-warming to read was that Queen Mary had all too often been portrayed as a cold, superior sort of woman, but she was obviously a warm endearing soul, who did arguably far more than any latter-day Princess in actually going out and working in the Community. Nor did she feel the need to tip off the Press to ensure a photograph being taken to indicate she was a 'People's Person'.Now that it is back in print, for any royal enthusiast it is a must-read.

Queen Mary - simply the best biography of a modern Royal you are ever likely to read. The lady paid her bills, contrary to popular belief, but you wouldn't want to get between QM and a piece of jewellery or an antique she'd taken a shine to. You get a clear sense of how vastly different the world was when she was born, a useful reminder that many of the "old" people (when we 60 year olds were young) had been born pre the telephone, let alone Sputnik and the space race. Mr Pope-Hennessey gently hints that even among their aristocratic contemporaries QM & KG were considered to be terrible parents as well as more than slightly bonkers. The book was written long before George V's true part in the massacre of the Romanov family was known. I'm not sure how their reputations would have recovered, or could have recovered, had the true facts been known when the book was published mid cold war. The detail of her childhood and upbringing is fascinating, her Mother was patronized & despised even though (perhaps because?) she ensured her daughter had (for the time & her class) a good education. Certainly by comparison with the daughters of the Prince of Wales. Her parents were recklessly extravagant, Queen Mary was not afraid of spending money witness the vast quantities of diamonds, turquoise, emeralds, sapphires, gold boxes, Faberge etc that she acquired and some of the dress books that Mr Pope-Hennessey has partially transcribed make for pretty mind boggling reading. The list of antique furniture is quite impressive as well. Her Mum was a granddaughter of George III and it's as though QM was trying to buy her way back into the Royal Family.I see that, understandably, some reviewers have remarked on the lack of exposition of QM's inner thoughts on the abdication and other events during her life. I suspect that is/was because QM wasn't one to reveal her innermost thoughts to anyone. So one can only speculate. Even her children had no real idea what her actual opinions were on any given subject, such was her iron reserve. Someone, not quoted in this biography because his diaries were not available at the time it was written, reported/described having a conversation with her as having a conversation with the North face of the Eiger. QM did not gossip, neither does her gracious granddaughter the present HMQ. The biography does explain/tactfully hint at the reasons for the reserve - it extended to her affection for King George.The paperback does not have the photos from the hardback. I think this is a mistake. I'm in my 60s and wasn't born when these people were alive. Consequently I have no idea what they looked like, illustrations photos etc would have been very useful. Another of the reviewers of this book has suggested that a book could usefully be written solely on QM'S experiences during WW2 ( "so that's what hay looks like"). Sadly Sir Osbert Sitwell got there first, though the relevant part of his autobiography is long out of print, JPH lifted from it shamelessly. Most of the anecdotes about QM'S time at Badminton, including her awesome arrival at the head of a substantial parade of removal vans, come from Sir Osbert's book.

I’m just old enough to remember the death of Queen Mary. As a child, I found her an odd but intriguing figure; she was so starched and formal and always looked serious and imposing. I’m not a monarchist, but I’ve remained interested in how the current royal family manages to fool the people into thinking they’re British. Queen Mary spoke English with a strong guttural German accent, but is not generally considered to be German.Pope Hennessey’s biography of QM I’d guess is definitive. It’s incredibly detailed, with extensive footnotes and revenues which are easy to navigate in the kindle version. I found the first part of the book quite compelling; the complexity around arranged marriages within the European monarchs us amazing. Little was left to chance and most of the royal houses always had their eye on a main prize to secure allegiances and positions of power. Mary of Teck’s background is explained in detail and it’s fascinating.The writing is lively and to my surprise, I eventually began to warm slightly to this lady. There’s another side to her and it’s brought out well in this enjoyable biography. I’m still no monarchist, but it’s changed my view of this particular royal.

This book was written in 1959. It is of another era. Like its subject, the redoubtable Queen Mary. It is though beautifully written and very entertaining. And it is an honest assessment, not a hagiography.For all her wealth and privilege it is possible to feel sympathy for Mary; she was self-effacing and saw her role as being supportive to her husband - not an easy task - and though they clearly adored each other the stiffness and formality of their official lives was a huge strain.What comes across is a woman driven by a sense of duty.Her legacy and example to her granddaughter, our Queen, is clear.For good and ill.

I have always wanted to know more about Queen Mary who is one of those 'Royals' who seems to have kept themselves very much in the background. James Pope-Hennessy's biography is disappointing in that it is sycophantic and extremely dull. Added to which, there are no images (a 'must' in any biography/autobiography) even though the text tells the reader to 'refer to Plates XYZ'. Once I have finished the book - in the vain hope it might get better towards the end - it is going straight to a charity shop where some other unsuspecting blighter will buy it thinking it is going to be a good read.