"Edward and Alexandra is the compellingly readable biography of the royal couple who became the symbol of the Edwardian Age. Behind his back he was often called Prince Hal, even 'Tum-Tum'. When he acceded to the throne his enduring mistress, Mrs. Alice Keppel, called him 'Kingy'. He was King Edward VII, the eldest son of Queen Victoria and her adored husband, Prince Albert. As heir to his mother's throne for almost sixty years, he was ripe for nicknames. Yet he was no fool. Frequently compared to Henry VIII because of his girth, he also possessed the Tudor king's political shrewdness, and his influence helped steer England away from Germany and onto the side of Russia and France during World War I. His behind-the-scenes maneuvering changed world history. She was Alexandra, the breath-takingly lovely daughter of a Danish prince and the sister of the Russian Tsarina. Desperately shy, Alix, as she was called, was considered an unlikely consort for the next king of England until she charmed his formidable mother. Her background was as full of warmth and family love as his was cold, formal, and unhappy. Theirs was a complex union. The marriage of the most powerful prince to the most beautiful princess in the world was like some matchless, living fairytale, and English society, for so long leaderless, gloried in their assumption of power. That was in 1863. It was not long before Bertie, while remaining fond of Alix all his life, was enjoying a series of mistresses. He also found himself in court, first in a divorce case and then in a gambling scandal. Never has an heir to the throne passed through so many phases of public disapproval and adulation, but for the agelessly beautiful Alix there was never anything but public love and admiration. On the death of Queen Victoria, in spite of widespread anxiety, the pair made the complete King and Queen. This is the story of the marriage of two people who were so different yet so colorfully interdependent that the part they played on the public stage for half a century was at once unique and unrepeatable. Edward and Alexandra recounts their public and private lives with fresh interpretation and new material that redefine their relationship with one another and with the great figures of their time."--Front and back flaps of cover.