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.

Choice Reviews

What we can be grateful for here is having a much-needed reappraisal of the cultural activity that characterized the twilight years of Stuart rule.

New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century

[An] informative collection. . . .Reverand has brought together fine essays on music, theater, visual art, architecture, poetry, and print culture.

SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

[An] excellent collection.

Eighteenth-Century Life

The essayists are well qualified to assess the arts in the reign of Queen Anne and include EC-ASECS members as well as international scholars.... This collection of essays helps us see the constructs that Anne and her artistic community shared in the representation of the finest of British creativity to the world at large.

The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer