The Queen and I (The Queen and I #1)

Sue Townsend


Rated: 3.72 of 5 stars
3.72 · 18 ratings · 288 pages · Published: 27 Mar 1992

The Queen and I by Sue Townsend
Townsend, author of the phenomenally successful Adrian Mole books, here brings off an audacious notion with considerable elan. She imagines a Britain where an unforgiving, newly elected Republican Party decides that the entire Royal Family must learn to live like other Britons, or in their case, like desperately poor lower-class Britons on a hideous housing estate in a provincial city.

A notable farceur, Townsend has terrific fun imagining how they would cope: the Queen buckles down sturdily, mindful of stiff-upper-lip duty; Prince Philip goes to pieces and takes to his bed; Margaret remains a royal pain, perpetually and irritably in search of a cigarette; Diana haunts thrift shops for designer castoffs and snares a flashy West Indian boyfriend; Charles, infatuated with a zaftig neighbor, gets involved in a brawl and is jailed, while his organic garden goes to pieces; Anne copes stolidly, much helped by the gift of a horse and the Queen Mum, never quite aware of what is happening, dies peacefully in her little bungalow, and has a splendid horse-drawn funeral in a home-made coffin. Meanwhile Harris, the Queen's corgi, runs wild with a pack of mongrels.

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