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Edward and Alexandra: Their Private and Public Lives
A dual biography of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra chronicles a marriage that fascinated the public and a reign bridged the Victorian and modern eras.
369 pages, Hardcover
First published August 19, 1993
2 people are currently reading
78 people want to read
About the author
Richard Hough
140 books24 followersRichard Alexander Hough was a British author and historian specializing in naval history. As a child, he was obsessed with making model warships and collecting information about navies around the world. In 1941, he joined the Royal Air Force and trained at a flying school near Los Angeles. He flew Hurricanes and Typhoons and was wounded in action.
After World War II, Hough worked as a part-time delivery driver for a wine shop, while looking for employment involving books. He finally joined the publishing house Bodley Head, and then Hamish Hamilton, where he eventually headed the children’s book division.
His work as a publisher inspired him to turn to writing himself in 1950, and he went on to write more than ninety books over a long and successful career. Best-known for his works of naval history and his biographies, he also wrote war novels and books for children (under the pseudonym Bruce Carter), all of which sold in huge numbers around the world. His works include The Longest Battle: The War at Sea 1939-45, Naval Battles of the Twentieth Century and best-selling biographies of Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Captain James Cook. Captain Bligh and Mr Christian, his 1972 account of the mutiny on the Bounty, was the basis of the 1984 film The Bounty, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson.
Hough was the official historian of the Mountbatten family and a longtime student of Churchill. Winston Churchill figures prominently in nine of his books, including Former Naval Person: Churchill and the Wars at Sea. He won the Daily Express Best Book of the Sea Award in 1972.
After World War II, Hough worked as a part-time delivery driver for a wine shop, while looking for employment involving books. He finally joined the publishing house Bodley Head, and then Hamish Hamilton, where he eventually headed the children’s book division.
His work as a publisher inspired him to turn to writing himself in 1950, and he went on to write more than ninety books over a long and successful career. Best-known for his works of naval history and his biographies, he also wrote war novels and books for children (under the pseudonym Bruce Carter), all of which sold in huge numbers around the world. His works include The Longest Battle: The War at Sea 1939-45, Naval Battles of the Twentieth Century and best-selling biographies of Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Captain James Cook. Captain Bligh and Mr Christian, his 1972 account of the mutiny on the Bounty, was the basis of the 1984 film The Bounty, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson.
Hough was the official historian of the Mountbatten family and a longtime student of Churchill. Winston Churchill figures prominently in nine of his books, including Former Naval Person: Churchill and the Wars at Sea. He won the Daily Express Best Book of the Sea Award in 1972.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 20, 2019
I have a soft spot for Bertie but I think we can ALL agree that #ALIXDESERVEDBETTER!!!! Hough is remarkably easy on Bertie.
February 28, 2025
A look at the lives of Edward and Alexandra, Britain's popular monarchs who came after Queen Victoria. The book starts out talking about their childhoods which were vastly different: happy (Alexandra) and unhappy (Edward). One feels sorry for Alexandra as she is forced into isolation because of her deafness and ill health during one of her pregnancies. It's an exciting look at a time long since gone.
July 20, 2018
#62 of 120 books pledged to read during 2018
June 6, 2013
Hough does what he can with what are essentially two glittering but vapid people who spent almost a lifetime waiting to be King and Queen. That lifetime was filled with countless evenings out at the opera, innumerable bottles of champagne and quail stuffed with foie gras, horse racing and hunting - interspersed with the occasional scandal, and mostly overshadowed by a sensitive and constantly offended mother (and mother-in-law) who they alternately feared, manipulated, and ignored. When at last Bertie and Alix ascend to the throne, their are in their sixties, and settled into comfortable routine, but still stylish bon vivants to the end.
August 25, 2010
An entertaining, if rather superficial, dual biography.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews