British Monarchy on Screen

Mandy Merck is Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London

• Introduction – Mandy MerckPart I: Victorian inventions1. ‘A Very Wonderful Process’: Queen Victoria, photography and film at the fin de siècle – Ian Christie 2. Sixty Years a Queen (1913): a lost epic of the reign of Victoria – Jude Cowan Montague 3. The heart of a heartless political world: screening Victoria – Steven Fielding 4. Walbrook's royal waltzes – James Downs Part II: The Elizabethan diva5. Her Majesty moves: Sarah Bernhardt, Queen Elizabeth, and the development of motion pictures – Victoria Duckett6. Elizabeth I: the cinematic afterlife of an early modern political diva – Elisabeth Bronfen and Barbara Straumann7. Queens and queenliness: Quentin Crisp as Orlando’s Elizabeth I – Glyn DavisPart III: Images of empire8. Renewing imperial ties: The Queen in Australia – Jane Landman 9. The King’s Speech: an allegory of imperial rapport – Deirdre Gilfedder Part IV: Popular participation in royal representation10. The Queen has two bodies: Amateur film, civic culture and the rehearsal of monarchy – Karen Lury11. The regal catwalk: Royal weddings and the media promotion of British fashion – Jo Stephenson 12. The Queen on the big screen(s) – outdoor screens and public congregations – Ruth AdamsPart V: Television’s contested histories13. Television’s royal family: continuity and change – Erin Bell and Ann Gray 14. The Tudors and the post-national, post-historical Henry VIII – Basil GlynnPart VI: Monarchy in contemporary Anglophone cinema15. From political power to the power of the image: Contemporary ‘British’ cinema and the nation’s monarchs – Andrew Higson 16. Melodrama, celebrity, The Queen – Mandy Merck 17. When words fail: The King’s Speech as melodrama – Nicola Rehling Index

‘Overall this collection brings together a range of well-researched and well-written essays which explore in great detail the various ways in which photography and film have been used to represent the British monarchy. One cannot help coming to the conclusion that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's early attraction to the new photographic medium was a prescient move on their part on behalf of the monarchy as an institution.’Allister Mactaggart, Chesterfield College, Cercles