One of her two books about Queen Elizabeth I, in this book, Dame Edith Sitwell evokes a great age of blood and gold. The honey of the hive is the power and glory of England; the queens are Mary Tudor, Mary Stuart, and at the centre, gorgeous, gay and terrible Elizabeth, "the being in whose reign the greatness of England began." Feminine intuition and the imagination of a great poet are combined in this luxuriant-toned poem of a book. It is enthralling to read of Elizabeth's accession to her perilous throne, of the designs of France and Spain upon Scotland, of the opening of a new hemisphere and to see the three Queens spinning their web of dynastic, marriages and murders.

The Reprint Society, London, 1962, hardback, reasonable condition. Dust jacket slightly chipped, covered in contact, writing inside on front leaf.