Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne

New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2000. xii, 363 pages, [16] pages of plates, illustrations (some colour), portraits; 24 cm. First U.S. Edition. Originally published: London: Chatto & Windus, 2000. Tight, clean copy. Stated First Edition. Fine DJ. "An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man's world, passionately sexual -- though, as she maintained, a virgin -- Elizabeth I is famed as England's most successful ruler. David Starkey's brilliant new biography concentrates on Elizabeth's formative years -- from her birth in 1533 to her accession in 1558 -- and shows how the experiences of danger and adventure formed her remarkable character and shaped her opinions and beliefs. From princess and heir-apparent to bastardized and disinherited royal, accused traitor to head of the princely household, Elizabeth experienced every vicissitude of fortune and extreme of condition -- and rose above it all to reign during a watershed moment in history. A uniquely absorbing tale of one young woman's turbulent, courageous, and seemingly impossible journey toward the throne, Elizabeth is the exhilarating story of the making of a queen. / David Starkey is the Bye Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and the author of Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne. A winner of the W. H. Smith Prize and the Norton Medlicott Medal for Services to History presented by Britain's Historical Association, Mr. Starkey lives in London." - Publisher.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo.