A rarity in the Thirkell canon, this charming and witty historical novel is set largely in the coronation summer of 1838, when the young Victoria, scarcely older than the tale's narrator, Fanny Harcourt, assumes the throne of England.

The seventeen-year-old Fanny journeys from her native Norfolk to London, where she takes up residence with her close friend Emily Dacre (and her father as chaperone) in a Queen Street apartment for the six weeks of festivities surrounding Victoria's coronation. This allows Thirkell a splendid opportunity to portray the excitement of the capital and its environs through unsophisticated yet sharply discerning, and entertainingly mischievous, eyes. Fanny's tour of London on the verge of the Victorian Age includes avid attention to the famous sights of the day, culminating, of course, in the coronation parade itself.

Happily, the pomp, pageantry, and swelling crowds of commoners and snobs do little to distract Fanny and Emily from more familiar Thirkellian concerns: infatuations and romantic misunderstandings, the rigors of matchmaking and rituals of courtship, and the web of relation and acquaintance that circumscribe any social scene. Replete with period detail and nineteenth-century atmosphere, Thirkell's fictional experiment will surprise and delight her established fans and win her new admirers among those enchanted with Victoriana.