A CENTURY OF BRITISH MONARCHY (274 pp.)Hector BolithoLongmans, Green ($6).
When Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition in 1851, she was one of 20 reigning European sovereigns. The number has now dropped to seven,* but, as Hector Bolitho says in A Century of British Monarchy, "the influence of the monarchy in Britain [has] remained as strong as ever." Bolitho looks for the sources of this strength and finds a big one in the energetic character of the royal family itself.
His book, which includes a fine gleaning of drawings and photographs, is chiefly a series of informal personality sketches. Queen...