Queen Mary: The Official Biography Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

James Pope-Hennessy (Author), Hugo Vickers (Author), Gareth Armstrong (Narrator),

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The official biography of Queen Mary, grandmother of the current queen, originally commissioned in 1959 - with a new foreword by Hugo Vickers.

When Queen Mary died in 1953, James Pope-Hennessy was commissioned to write an official biography of her - unusual for a queen consort. Queen Mary's life, contrary to popular belief, was essentially dramatic, and she played a far more important and influential role in the affairs of the British monarchy than her public image might have otherwise suggested. Using material from the Royal Archives, private papers, and Queen Mary's personal diaries and letters, Pope-Hennessy's biography was a remarkable portrait of a remarkable woman and received rave reviews across the press.

Long out of print, this new edition of Queen Mary will be accompanied by a new foreword from royal biographer and writer Hugo Vickers.

Listening Length

24 hours and 37 minutes
Author

James Pope-Hennessy, see all
Narrator

Gareth Armstrong
Audible release date

March 2 2021
Language

English
Publisher

Tantor Audio
ASIN

B08WJ1DMPL
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	24 hours and 37 minutes
Author	James Pope-Hennessy, Hugo Vickers
Narrator	Gareth Armstrong
Audible.ca Release Date	March 02 2021
Publisher	Tantor Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B08WJ1DMPL
Best Sellers Rank	#68,027 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #266 in Great Britain History #379 in Historical Biographies (Audible Books & Originals) #775 in Royalty Biographies (Books)

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

685 global ratings

5 star		71%
4 star		17%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from Canada

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Ethan Artyom McIntyre

Fantastic book

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 29, 2022

Verified Purchase

Best written biography I have ever read.

Helpful

Kelly McKelly

THEE BIOGRAPHY!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on September 6, 2021

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This is thee biography of Queen Mary. Written using primary documents, so there's not questions of, "is this true?" I loved this book and never wanted it to end. I would have ben happy of it had been 2000 pages. Author really knows how to write, using primary documents.

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linda mccallum

Everything you want to know and a whole lot more....

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 26, 2019

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Wonderfully written but gosh - the author must have spent a lot of time trying to put every single thing in a positive light. And more detail than you can imagine. Way more.

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Renata Holder

Fun to read, annoyed about the omission of illustrations.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

I am very happy to see this in print again, thanks I believe to the success of Hugo Vickers new book. Written in a chatty, occasionally irreverent style it is a delight to re-read.
My complaint is aimed at the publisher who didn’t bother to reproduce the illustrations/ plates. This is made even more annoying by the fact that they didn’t bother to remove the references to the plates in the text.

Helpful

Amazon Customer

entertaining autobiography

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 19, 2019

Verified Purchase

funny and full of details - great read!

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John D. Cofield

A wonderful biography

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on December 21, 2000

I am so glad to see James Pope-Hennessey's Queen Mary in print again after so many years. This is the official biography of the present Queen's grandmother, originally published in 1959 or 1960. Most official biographies are dull. Queen Mary is not. It accomplishes that which all biographies should desire: not just a bare record of the subject's life, but an evocation of the subject's world. Every home of Queen Mary is elegantly described. Her travels in Italy and elsewhere and her visits to the homes of relations in England and in Germany are exhaustively but not boringly documented. Pope-Hennessey's prose is stately, almost eighteenth century, but always lucid and often witty. My favorite sections of the book are those dealing with Queen Mary's life before her marriage, when she was a morganatic princess with few prospects. Her often difficult and embarrassing early life made her a suitable prospect for a bride for the Duke of Clarence and Avondale, second in line to the British throne. The Duke, or Eddy as he was known in the family, was a difficult young man with embarrassing habits (since this is an official biography written under the auspices of Buckingham Palace, Pope-Hennessey was necessarily circumspect about these habits. You will not find a discussion of the Cleveland Street scandal here, for instance). When Eddy died a few weeks after his engagement was announced, his fiancee (and the British Empire) was transferred to his more suitable younger brother George, Duke of York. Although the circumstances of her marriage and ascent into the highest levels of British royalty were a little unusual, Queen Mary was the epitome of royal dignity for the rest of her life as Duchess of York, Princess of Wales, Queen Consort, and finally Queen Dowager. Pope-Hennessey's coverage of the Queen's personal life is a bit limited,once again due to the limits placed on an official historian. Her relationships with her husband and children, especially the Duke of Windsor, are not dealt with in much detail, and her personal peccadillos, such as her penchant for dropping broad hints about presents she would like, are not covered at all. But there are plenty of unofficial sources if you are looking for that sort of thing about Queen Mary and her family. Pope-Hennessey is the best choice for those looking for a beautifully written description of life in a vanished world.

One person found this helpful

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richard routhe

A Small Treasure

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 20, 2001

I stumbled upon this book at a library discard sale, andactually decided to buy it to find out more about the Queen for whichthe ocean liner was named than for any interest in the person herself!Like the previous reviewer, I found the detail amazing, and developeda genuine affection for the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Teck, aswell as (surprisingly) Queen Victoria. Pope-Hennessey did an admirablejob of keeping all the relatives sorted out, and the exhaustivefootnotes and references kept the reader on track. Unlike the previousreviewer, however, I thought the book became slogged down in detailafter detail, often delivered in a "cutesy" style that wasless "eighteenth century" than coy preciousness. There wasalso a measure of sexism I suppose that was "normal" when hewas writing which dates the material somewhat. All in all, it tellsan engrossing story of the English monarchy at the zenith, as well asthe decline and fall of the British Empire. One thing for sure- I knowafter whom the present Queen has modeled her fashions these last 50years!

Helpful

Barbara Welty

God Save the Queen

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 21, 2002

Pope-Hennessy's book is a delight to read. He writes in a readable engrosing manner which makes his book hard to put down. He gives us a enthralling account of the life of this remarkably down to earth woman who is always a queen. The many love letters she received from her husband, the king, also disclose to us a woman who was indispensable to his success as a monarch. For everyone who has an even remote interest in royalty this is the book for you. A good read!

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Stephen Bentley

The best biography of a modern Royal.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 9, 2019

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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.

19 people found this helpful

Robert Arckless

A great read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 4, 2021

Verified Purchase

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.

4 people found this helpful

Mrs Geraldine M Faulkner

Disappointingly dull and NO photos

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 27, 2019

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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.

5 people found this helpful

Pat

Perseverance is required

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 27, 2021

Verified Purchase

The first two chapters of the book were given over to naming to many foreign royals, , I found it worth persevering as , once it became about Queen Mary, her marriage and her character I thoroughly enjoyed learning what this great Queen did, and gave to the world.

3 people found this helpful

proutie

Skip to when she becomes Queen Mary

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

The first half is an almost interminable review of Mary of Teck's extended family, none of whom were particularily famous. Ok for history buffs, bit I suggest skipping to when Mary marries the future George V1 - the book does then go up several gears and provides a fascinating insight to this excellent Queen Consort

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