Just when we didn’t think the world needed another book about the late British monarch, an award-winning writer has “re-invented the art of biography” with a book about Queen Elizabeth.

Author of One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time and Ma’am Darling, satirist Craig Brown, 67, has combined biography, essays, cultural history, dream diaries, travelogue and satire into A Voyage Around the Queen.

In extracts published before its release date on September 4, one anecdote about former US president Donald Trump and his meetings with the late queen in 2019 has already made global headlines.

Elizabeth, who died in September 2022 aged 96, thought Trump was “very rude” after she hosted him in 2018 in Trump’s first British visit since becoming president, and twice in 2019 for a three-day visit when she held state banquets at Buckingham Palace.

He famously broke royal etiquette and walked in front of the queen when they inspected the royal guard in July 2018.

“Over the course of her reign, the queen entertained many controversial foreign leaders, including Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Donald Trump, Emperor Hirohito and Vladimir Putin,” Brown wrote.

“She may not have found their company convivial; upon their departure, she may even have voiced a discreet word of disapproval.

“A few weeks after [former] president Trump’s visit [unknown which one], for instance, she confided in one lunch guest that she found him very rude.

“She particularly disliked the way he couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting.”

Brown said the queen thought Trump must “have an arrangement” with his wife, Melania: “Why else would she remain married to him?”

At a state banquet at Buckingham Palace in June 2019. Donald Trump thought it all went very well. Photo: Getty

Recollections vary

By contrast, Brown said Trump, 78, had a completely different impression of their relationship.

“For his part, Donald Trump was confident he had been her favourite guest ever,” Brown said.

Trump previously claimed he had “a great relationship with the queen” during an interview with Fox News.

“We were laughing and having fun. And her people said she hasn’t had so much fun in 25 years,” he said.

“Then I got criticised for it because they said we were having too much fun.

“I feel I know her so well and she certainly knows me very well right now, but we have a very good relationship with the United Kingdom.”

The late queen and Paddington Bear share afternoon tea in her platinum jubilee sketch.

Celebrity recollections

Extracts available to read now recount the queen’s coronation in detail right through to the days and final hours of her death in September two years ago.

In between, there’s the story behind Elizabeth’s decision to play a crucial role in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony alongside James Bond actor Daniel Craig.

And, adorably, how and why she agreed to share afternoon tea with Paddington Bear for her platinum jubilee.

Brown’s book also shares anecdotes about how the late English writer Virginia Woolf once compared her to a caterpillar.

The book also recounts the respect for the young monarch from Anne Frank, as she hid from the Nazis during World War II, and how the queen visited the Frank family’s graves in 2015, including the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

There is also reportedly a story about the time Jimi Hendrix played her tune, when Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie gave her a gold tiara and the time Hollywood actor Dirk Bogarde watched Death in Venice with her.

“Andy Warhol envied her fame, Donald Trump offended her and EM Forster confessed he would have married her, if only she had been a boy.”