玛格丽特·乔治（Margaret George）是英国历史题材小说舞台上的一位重磅角色。她已经出版的历史小说包括《玛丽》（Mary）、《苏格兰女王》（Queen of Scots）、《亨利八世》（Henry VIII）和《克里奥派特拉回忆录》（Memoirs of Cleopatra），等。最近，玛格丽特·乔治又推出了一部新作，《伊丽莎白一世》（Elizabeth I）。

Any novelist who deals with Elizabeth I has two problems: a surfeit of detail and a paucity of motive. It’s reasonably easy to find out about the trivia of daily life and to trace the actions of important people; much less easy to figure out why anyone did what they did.

Elizabeth herself left little material that would tell us what lay behind her actions. George made two clever decisions in handling this dilemma: telling the story from two viewpoints — those of Elizabeth and her look-alike younger cousin, Lettice Knollys; and beginning the story not during the perilous years before Elizabeth’s accession but in her late middle age.

——Diana Gabaldon

有关伊丽莎白一世的历史题材小说并非空白。而玛格丽特·乔治的这部作品被认为是超越了前人的一部杰作。书评家们指出“《伊丽莎白一世》不仅仅是又一部有关那位条顿女王的小说”。同样拥有历史小说作家身份的作家戴安娜·嘉宝顿（Diana Gabaldon）的重点推荐理由更是直接，“如果是玛格丽特·乔治的作品那就值得一读”。