Sarah Gristwood

Sarah Gristwood is an English journalist and author.^[1] She was born in Kent, grew up in Dover^[2] and was educated at St Anne's College, Oxford.^[1]

As a journalist she has written for a number of British papers, including The Times, The Guardian and the Telegraph.^[3] She has written historical biographies as well as fiction, and has contributed to television documentaries.^[3]

Gristwood's historical biography, Arbella: England's Lost Queen is about Lady Arbella Stuart, an English noblewoman who was considered a possible successor to Elizabeth I. In a review in The Times, Kevin Sharpe wrote, "Sarah Gristwood presents a powerful story of the dynastic insecurity of the Tudors and Stuarts, and of the vulnerability of Elizabeth and James to foreign and domestic intrigues."^[4] Sarah Gristwood accepted the invitation of the Royal Stuart Society, on the occasion of the Quatercentenary of the death of Arbella, to give a Lecture with the title: Lady Arbella Stuart – England’s Lost Queen?

Her book, Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe, focuses on five queens: Catherine de Medici, Anne Boleyn, Mary I of England, Elizabeth I, and Mary, Queen of Scots.^[5]

She has appeared in the movie Venice/Venice (1992), and as herself in the television series Stars of the Silver Screen (2011) and Discovering Fashion: The Designers (2015).^[6]

Gristwood was married to the film critic Derek Malcolm from 1994 until his death in 2023.^[7][8]

Bibliography

• Perdita: Royal Mistress, Writer, Romantic (2005). Bantam. ISBN 9780593052082
• Arbella: England's Lost Queen (2005). Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780618341337
• Bird of Paradise: The Colourful Career of the First Mrs Robinson (2007). Bantam. ISBN 9780553816174
• Elizabeth and Leicester: The Truth about the Virgin Queen and the Man She Loved (2008). Penguin Books. ISBN 9780143114499
• The Ring and the Crown: A History of Royal Weddings (2011). Hutchinson. ISBN 9780091943776
• Breakfast at Tiffany's Companion: The Official 50th Anniversary Companion (2011). Rizzoli International Publications. ISBN 9780847836710
• The Girl in the Mirror (2012). William Collins. ISBN 9780007379057
• Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses (2012). Harper Press. ISBN 9780007309290
• Fabulous Frocks (2013). Pavilion. ISBN 9781909108264
• Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe (2016). Basic Books. ISBN 9780465096787
• The Story of Beatrix Potter (2016) United Kingdom: Pavilion Books. ISBN 9781909881808
• Elizabeth: Queen and Crown (2017). Pavilion. ISBN 9781911595076
• The Queen's Mary: In the Shadows of Power... (2018). Sharpe Books.
• Vita & Virginia: The Lives and Love of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West (2018). National Trust. ISBN 9781911358381
• The Tudors in Love: The Courtly Code Behind the Last Medieval Dynasty (2021). Oneworld Publications. ISBN 9780861543748