Queen Bees cover art

Queen Bees

Six Brilliant and Extraordinary Society Hostesses Between the Wars – A Spectacle of Celebrity, Talent, and Burning Ambition

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Queen Bees

By: Siân Evans
Narrated by: Carole Boyd
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

 'ENORMOUS FUN' GUARDIAN
'SO ENTERTAINING' THE TIMES
'GOSSIPY, LIGHT AND FUN' TLS

Queen Bees looks at the lives of six remarkable women who made careers out of being society hostesses, including Lady Astor, who went on to become the first female MP, and Mrs Greville, who cultivated relationships with Edward VII, as well as Lady Londonderry, Lady Cunard, Laura Corrigan and Lady Colefax. Written with wit, verve and heart, Queen Bees is the story of a form of societal revolution, and the extraordinary women who helped it happen.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the previously strict hierarchies of the British class system were weakened. For a number of ambitious, spirited women, this was the chance they needed to slip through the cracks and take their place at the top of society as the great hostesses of the time. In an age when the place of women was uncertain, becoming a hostess was not a chore, but a career choice, and though some of the hostesses' backgrounds were surprisingly humble, their aspirations were anything but. During the inter-war years these extraordinary women ruled over London society from their dining tables and salons - entertaining everyone from the Mosleys to the Mitfords, from millionaires to maharajahs, from film stars to royalty - and their influence can still be felt today.

(P)2016 John Murray Press©2016 Siân Evans 20th Century Europe Great Britain Historical Modern Women England Royalty Heartfelt Thought-Provoking Imperialism War

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Noble Ambitions cover art
Three Times a Countess cover art
Bertie: A Life of Edward VII cover art
Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1) cover art
American Empress cover art
The Transatlantic Marriage Bureau cover art
Vanderbilt cover art
King's Counsellor cover art
The Housekeeper's Tale cover art
The Accidental Duchess cover art
The Final Curtsey cover art
A Royal Life cover art
George and Marina cover art
Charles and Camilla cover art
The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters cover art
The Unfinished Palazzo cover art

Critic reviews

So entertaining - and there's lots of insider fun to be had... Excels at anecdotes and punchlines... The strength of Queen Bees is its wealth of detail and its author's nose for a human story... This book dances in and out of its subject to the sound of plate-smashing, cut-glass gossip, ukeleles, Beecham's orchestras, jazz bands, Nazi anthems and bombs. "I've been to a marvellous party," wrote Noël Coward. Thanks to Queen Bees, we can feel as though we were there too.
The book, like their parties, is often "enormous fun"
Delightful... Crammed with fascinating anecdotes
If guest lists and gossip columns, invitations and address books, seating plans and social mountaineering tick your box, this is the book for you.
Rich in anecdote... a fascinating account... Group biography is a difficult trick to pull off, but Evans is deft with her interweaving of narrative and history...
This is a whirl of a book, gossipy, light and fun
Evans's pacy account of these intrepid social lion-hunters sparkles with famous names
Gloriously gossipy... A snapshot of a bygone age from Gosford Park-style big country house parties to dancing until dawn in Park Lane mansions long demolished.
The individual characters of these unusual women are well delineated and all played significant roles in their time... An entertaining "spectacle of celebrity, talent, and burning ambition".
An irresistible and witty account
A compelling portrait of six inspiring women
Wonderfully readable
An exciting read, Evans has painted a compelling portrait of six inspiring women.
Evans makes a good case for her hostesses' importance as purveyors of soft power: the artistic, cultural and political reach of their address books, she argues had a profound impact on modern British society. All were marvellously quotable, as spiteful as they were ambitious, mistresses of the apparently throwaway remark designed to draw blood, but their success was due as much to their status and fortunes as to their brilliance. One of the pleasures of books like these is that you close them with a feeling of overwhelming gratitude for your own mundane life
All stars
Most relevant
My passion for history, society and strong personalities are all wrapped in this gift of a book. Just get it, and enjoy 😉

Superb

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Having just finished 'Flappers' it was interesting to me to explore the lives of the pre war hostesses who entertained some of the cast. I was amazed to discover that only one of them was nobly born most were rich parvenues who were ruthless in their climb to what they saw as the top.

Intriguing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
FASCINATING BOOK AND WELL PRESENTED ...and so informative about some great ladies ...

also well presented !

HIGHLY ENTERTAINING & INFORMATIVE

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Much more than party planners & social mountaineers.
Another reviewer heads his review ‘not a rounded view’! I really can’t imagine what s/he was listening to. I have previously read or listened to a number of works that have considerable insight into these women (not least 140+ hours of the diaries of Henry ‘Chips’ Channon!) and so I was keen to have them be the focus of the story rather than the ‘supporting players’ in men’s biographies etc. I found the book insightful and balanced. If anything the style is a little too journalistic and might have benefited from a few lyrical flights, given the milieu of History, Art, Jewels and Objet that these women inhabited and and used to mark their positions and describe their personal value.
Context is everything and especially relevant when looking at women’s achievements or otherwise in a male dominated culture. I found such context evident without being labored, and this and the well rounded portraits that include many voices and contemporary sources of evidence made for an enjoyable read.
I can only imagine that the other reviewers own prejudices blinded him/her from the outset.
In some ways this world (court/politics adjacent Society) is the most difficult to world for those of us who appear to live in more egalitarian and democratic times to comprehend. So much seems superficial and many of the values of this culture seem open to question by us. But the humanity of these women is evident here (good and bad if you will) if you can put aside inverted snobbery and potentially hypocritical distaste for the class ridden milieu and the social mountaineering it took to navigate a place to the top. Be under no illusion, there is always a ‘crème de La crème’ in society. It is only the criteria and the route to that spot that change. Scratch the surface and I doubt that either Britain or America are essentially better places today.

Much more than party planners & social mountaineers.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully read by Carole Boyd, Queen Bees is a thorough, informative and enjoyable book that addresses 6 women whose roles and influence in the early 20th C may otherwise be too easily forgotten.

Thank you Sian Evans for a delightful ‘read’

History in a delicious form

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews