Unforgettable as it was, the public response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 was not without precedent. When her great-grandfather King Edward VII—glamorous, cosmopolitan and extraordinarily popular—died in May 1910, the political, social and cultural anxieties of a nation in turmoil were temporarily set aside during a summer of intense and ritualised mourning. Join Martin Williams, author of The King is Dead, Long Live the King! as he charts a period of tension and transition as one era slipped away and another took shape.

Martin Williams is an art and social historian. He has worked at Christie's, Bonhams and Sotheby's Institute of Art and is a regular contributor to Country Life.