Royalty

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling....

The New York Times bestselling author returns with a biography examining the dramatic life and unparalleled leadership of England's greatest medieval king.

The first Plantagenet king inherited a blood-soaked kingdom from the Normans and transformed it into an empire stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem. In this epic history, Dan Jones vividly resurrects this fierce and seductive royal dynasty and its mythic world....

The sensational biography of Princess Diana, now revised to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her death....

In the year 493, the leader of a vast confederation of Gothic warriors, their wives, and children personally cut down Odoacer, the man famous for deposing the last Roman emperor in 476. That leader became Theoderic the Great (454-526)....

Picking up where Tina Brown’s masterful The Diana Chronicles left off, The Palace Papers reveals how the royal family reinvented itself after the trau­matic years when Diana’s blazing celebrity ripped through the House of Windsor like a comet....

The imprisonment and execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, in 1536 was unprecedented in English history and never before has there been a book devoted entirely to her fall.

Robert K. Massie returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure German princess who became Catherine the Great. Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into empress of Russia by sheer determination....

The Last Tsar tells the the definitive story behind the self-destruction of the autocratic Romanov dynasty, by the world’s foremost expert.

This acclaimed best seller from popular historian Alison Weir is a fascinating look at the Tudor family dynasty and its most infamous ruler....

The remarkable, little-known story of two trailblazing women in the Early Middle Ages who wielded immense power, only to be vilified for daring to rule....

Uncover the true story of the man who unified medieval Japan....

Anne Boleyn may be best known for losing her head, but as Tudor expert Tracy Borman reveals in a book that recasts British history, her greatest legacy lies in the path-breaking reign of her daughter, Elizabeth....

This is the intimate story of 20 tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition....

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt....

Archaeologist and biographer Max Adams returns the king in the North to his rightful place in history....

Following the intertwined stories of Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and Mary Queen of Scots from girlhood through young adulthood, Young Queens paints a picture of a world in which a woman could wield power at the highest level yet remain at the mercy of the state....

The first, epic and true story of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s life together, finally revealing why they chose to pursue a more independent path and the reasons behind their unprecedented decision to step away from their royal lives, from two top royal reporters....

Up until now, the curious tactic employed by biographers of the Queen has been to ignore what is interesting and to concentrate on what is not. Craig Brown rejects this formula, bringing his kaleidoscopic approach to the most famous—and most guarded—woman on earth, Queen Elizabeth II.

Baillie Gifford Prize winning author Lucy Hughes-Hallett transports us into a courtly world and provides an extraordinary story of the meteoric rise and fall of King James I’s favorite, George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham.

Author Eleanor Herman combines her unique access to royal archives with cutting-edge forensic discoveries to tell the true story of Europe’s glittering palaces: one of medical bafflement, poisonous cosmetics, ever-present excrement, festering natural illness, and, sometimes, murder....

New York Times bestselling author Paul French examines a controversial and revealing period in the early life of the legendary Wallis, Duchess of Windsor—her one year in China....

History is rarely kind to women of power, but few have had their reputations quite so brutally shredded as Catherine de’ Medici, Italian-born queen of France and influential mother of three successive French kings.

Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she "the people's princess" or a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic? Only Tina Brown can give us the truth....

In 1893, Liliuokalani, the Queen of Hawaii, was deposed and five years later her nation became an incorporated territory of the US. Published shortly after these events, Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen is an incredibly personal history of the islands that she was born to rule....

Royal intrigue takes center stage in The Abyssinians, a gripping new audio drama starring Danielle Deadwyler (Till, The Piano Lesson) delivering a masterful performance as a cunning queen navigating treacherous political waters and scheming sons. In the wake of King Ezana’s death, his brash widow Queen Yodit (Deadwyler) must decide which of her twin sons will ascend to the throne. Clashing beliefs about religion, duty, and the rights of a ruler collide in this unforgettable story about a royal house at a crossroads in history.

Before she was the Duchess of Windsor, Bessie Wallis Warfield was Mrs. Wallis Spencer, wife of Earl “Win” Spencer, a US Navy aviator. From humble beginnings in Baltimore, she rose to marry a man who gave up his throne for her. But what made Wallis Spencer, Navy Wife, the woman who could become the Duchess of Windsor? The answers lie in her one-year sojourn in China. In her memoirs, Wallis described her time in China as her “Lotus Year,” referring to Homer’s Lotus Eaters, a group living in a state of dreamy forgetfulness, never to return home.

Anne Boleyn has mesmerized the general public for centuries. Her tragic execution at the Tower of London on the 19th of May, 1536—orchestrated by her own husband—never ceases to intrigue. While many stories of Anne’s downfall have been told, few have truly traced the origins of her grim fate. In Thorns, Lust, and Glory, Estelle Paranque takes us back to where it all started: to France, where Anne learned the lessons that would set her on the path to becoming one of England's most infamous queens.

When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a series of overlapping crises, from war to social unrest. Though Nicholas’s life is often described as tragic, it was not fate that doomed the Romanovs—it was poor leadership and a blinkered faith in autocracy. Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy.

As King James I’s favorite, Buckingham was also his confidant, gatekeeper, advisor and lover. When Charles I succeeded his father, he was similarly enthralled and made Buckingham his best friend and mentor. A dazzling figure on horseback and a skilful player of the political game, Buckingham rapidly transformed the influence his beauty gave him into immense wealth and power. He became one of the most flamboyant and enigmatic Englishmen at the heart of seventeenth-century royal and political life.