Most scholars agree that Queen Anne had a remarkable, if not necessarily noteworthy, career . . . Anne's admirers (present as well as past) viewed her as confident, majestic, and impressive, whereas her detractors considered her fat, lazy, and sterile. The connections among gender, the body, and reputation could not be any more evident. Contributors to this collection generally adopt the former view. Reverand argues that, with regard to the arts, 'Anne has been seriously underestimated' and that the 'interim period' in which she ruled, the period before the advent of the Baroque, was characterized by a great deal of artistic experimentation. . . .[The essays] make intriguing forays into the ways in which the queen’s persona was adopted for political or ceremonial purposes; essays on Daniel Defoe (Nicholas Seager) and on musical odes (Estelle Murphy) are particularly interesting. . . .Summing Up: Recommended . . . Graduate students, researchers, faculty.