'An outstanding talent', Matthew D'Ancona, Spectator Books of the Year

'Kate Williams has perfected the art of historical biography..her pacy writing is underpinned by the most impeccable scholarship. I cannot recommend it highly enough', Alison Weir

'History at its best', Guardian

'One of our finest young historians', Independent

Young Elizabeth: the Making of our Monarch is out on May 7th. In my new book, I explore her early life, the influence of the abdication - and how the Queen became the woman she is today.

I am an expert on social, constitutional and royal history and the author of England's Mistress (2006), which was Book of the Week on Radio 4, and Book of the Year in the Times and the Independent. Becoming Queen (2008) was Book of the Year in the Tatler and Spectator. I co-authored The Ring and the Crown (2011).

I discuss history, politics and culture regularly on television and radio, including Newsnight and the Today programme, and was the social historian on the BBC's Restoration Home. I have appeared on national tv and radio sixty times so far in 2012, talking in particular about royal history, including the Queen's accession, and discussing her loyal address to parliament with Huw Edwards and Robert Hardman, live on BBC One.

My historical novel, The Pleasures of Men, is set in an 1840s London on the brink of collapse. Catherine Sorgeiul becomes obsessed with a series of murders in the East End – and unearths the terror in her soul that she has tried to forget.

View forthcoming events, TV appearances and publications

Praise for The Pleasures of Men

The Pleasures of Men shares with Wolf Hall an ambitious, challenging concern with form combined with a pitch-perfect historical ear... This intoxicating and disturbing novel is properly thrilling and extraordinarily well-written. Kate Williams is already an accomplished biographer; The Pleasures of Men shows a soaring talent let loose.' Independent on Sunday

‘intense, intelligent and hugely entertaining..it will add Williams to the ranks of queens of contemporary fiction’, The Guardian.

‘wonderfully imaginative, gripping, with a spider's web of a plot and a spine-tingling atmosphere of menace and suspense. The Times

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