The Quest for Queen Mary cover art

The Quest for Queen Mary

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Quest for Queen Mary

By: James Pope-Hennessy, Hugo Vickers - editor
Narrated by: Tim Bentinck, Gareth Armstrong
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

The highly acclaimed unexpurgated notes taken by James Pope-Hennessy for his official biography of Queen Mary, the present Queen's grandmother. Published in full for the first time and edited by much-admired royal biographer Hugo Vickers.

When James Pope-Hennessy began his work on Queen Mary's official biography, it opened the door to meetings with royalty, court members and retainers around Europe. The series of candid observations, secrets and indiscretions contained in his notes were to be kept private for 50 years. Now published in full for the first time and edited by the highly admired royal biographer Hugo Vickers, this is a riveting, often hilarious portrait of the eccentric aristocracy of a bygone age.

Giving much greater insight into Queen Mary than the official version, and including sharply observed encounters with, among others, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Duke of Gloucester, and a young Queen Elizabeth, The Quest for Queen Mary is set to be a classic of royal publishing.

©2018 Hugo Vickers (P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited Europe Great Britain Politics & Activism Royalty Witty Funny

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Bertie: A Life of Edward VII cover art
A Royal Life cover art
King's Counsellor cover art
Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1) cover art
The Final Curtsey cover art
Moving Target cover art
Courtesan cover art
The Friendly Air cover art
The Complete Short Stories cover art
A Dark-Adapted Eye cover art
High Rising cover art
The Housekeeper's Tale cover art
Cakes and Ale cover art
Villa on the Riviera cover art

Critic reviews

"A scary portrait of put-upon servants and potty aristos...this is arguably the most riotously funny volume published this year." (Max Hastings, Sunday Times)

"One of the funniest, most eccentric books of the year." (Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday)
All stars
Most relevant  
and very funny. It's a terrific insight into the original book. The monarchies of Europe expose their underbelly in a way that is continually comical and occasionally poignant.

Beautifully Performed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Compulsive listening . I'm on my 3rd repeat and will definitely listen to it again.

Enthralling.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great performance, personally, would have liked the male voices a little more distinctively different.. sometimes hard to distinguish who was talking.
Loved the way that the process of writing such a biography was explained in such detail, and then how PH’s privates notes, recordings etc were collared and brought to life to give a ‘behind the scenes- outtakes or personal notes; provided an unusual, ‘ography’ inside the ‘biography!’
Made for an exciting, honest, and highly interesting book! Now on the hunt for more like this!

A must listen for any biography bod!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I thought how clever it was for Pope Hennessy to make excellent incisive and contemporaneous notes of the interviews. Reflections in 1958 of the first half of the 20th Century in European aristocracy . Well done Hugo Vickers

Well curated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book contains lots of information, is well written and read. Very happy I bought it.

Great insight

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I think you have to have read the full on biography before reading or listening to this book. That said this, particularly the section describing visits to or with the then Duke of Gloucester, is one of the funniest books I have ever come across.

Fascinating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A book about a book could be perhaps tedious but Hugo Vickers’ editing of a now-unread biography of Queen Mary (by James Pope-Hennessy) is an amusing, and indeed sometimes hilarious, condensation of conversations and interviews with many members of the European and Scandinavian royal families, nearly all descended from Queen Victoria. The gossip, the bitchiness, the scandalous stories, the descriptions of palaces fabulous and in decline, would have definitely amused Queen Victoria. It certainly amused me.

Hilariously vivid portraits of many crazy (by their own admission) royals

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I listened to this immediately after the Pope-Hennessy biography of Queen Mary, which left me wanting more.
Despite the fact that JPH felt that he “got away” with an honest portrait of QM, it’s clear that he buried certain scoops: that Princess May had been in love with a wealthy aristocrat before marrying into the royal family, and also, when married, with Prince Henry of Battenberg, who married her aunt in law, Princess Beatrice. Moreover, that she almost certainly didn’t love Prince Eddy, who died, but also that she may not have loved her husband. In fact, one courtier believed that she was “terrified” of him.
In the book, JPH also soft-pedals just how terrible George and Mary were as parents.
JPH was also impressed by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and unimpressed with the late Queen Elizabeth. He felt that she and the Queen Mother were very rude in ignoring their German relatives.

This is probably a minority interest publication for anyone interested in European royalty, and/or that period of European history and/or the art of biography. For those it is interesting.

Gareth Armstrong, as always, does a superb job.

Once I’d got over the feeling that I was listening to the Archers, Timothy Bentinck was good too, though I think he mispronounced a few words.

The female narrator was good too and I don’t know why she wasn’t named.

Reveals QM loved someone other than George V

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not what you think. Not like a standard bio. Many narrative based accounts reflecting not only on Mary's life but aristocracy itself. An inside look at what it is to be royal. Their hilarious lack of empathy and compassion for persons and situations and their stoicism when mere mortals might crumble. Fascinating

Lovely and Hilarious

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An absolute joy to listen to. The use of material fabulous and to have a genuine account of our current Monarch and all that have gone before her was delivered excellently, informative and most important at times hilarious.

At some middle chapter I was thinking that I cannot wait to listen to this again!

Highly recommended if you have an interest in the Royal family. Some previous knowledge advised given the amount of people covered.

Sheer brilliance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews