Robert Lacy
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Robert Lacey is a British historian and biographer, known for his first-hand research behind the scenes of contemporary events. He is a British historian noted for his original research, which gets him close to – and often living alongside – his subjects. He began his writing career as a journalist on the Illustrated London News, and later The Sunday Times.
Lacey made his name in the royal-biography genre with his 1977 book on Queen Elizabeth II; after writing his first works of historical biography, Robert, Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh, he wrote Majesty, his pioneering biography of Queen Elizabeth II, published in 1977, which remains acknowledged as the definitive study of British monarchy. His deeply researched, immersive approach became a hallmark of his career: to research and write The Kingdom, about the Saudi royal family, Lacey took his wife and children to live for two and a half years in Jeddah in the late 1970s, and he later moved his family to Detroit to research a biography of Henry Ford. His subsequent output on the British royal family was prolific, including a biography of Princess Diana; in the years between his first and second books on the Queen, the royal family had undergone several divorces and faced the accidental death of the immensely popular Princess Diana, the subject of another Lacey biography.
Lacey's standing as a leading chronicler of the modern British monarchy has only grown with time. He is a renowned British historian, the author of numerous international bestsellers, and the historical consultant on the award-winning Netflix series The Crown, work that introduced his royal scholarship to a new generation of readers and viewers. His long career of granted access, exhaustive research, and bestselling books on royalty makes works bearing his name, such as his biography of Diana published at the height of her global fame, natural items of interest for collectors of royal-history literature.
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