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Good Queen Bess (book)

1990 biography by Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ28405950 ↗
Source-derived summary

Good Queen Bess: The Story of Elizabeth I of England is a 1990 children's biography by Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema. It describes the life and times during her reign from 1558 to 1603.

Reception

Booklist wrote "This biography of Queen Elizabeth I does an excellent job of describing the context of her life so that reasons for many of her actions become clear. The resulting depth is a pleasant surprise and will give the book a wide audience." while the School Library Journal wrote "Although the format suggests a picture-book audience, this biography needs to be introduced to older readers who have the background to appreciate and understand this woman who dominated and named an age.."

Kirkus Reviews called Good Queen Bess "An admirably clear, attractive summary." Publishers Weekly wrote "The authors .. vivify another colorful character"

In 1991, the book was categorized as a Non-fiction Honor Book by the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Good Queen Bess (book)” is 1990 biography by Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Good, Queen and Bess, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1990, 1558, 1603, 1991—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1990-01-01. For this dossier, Good, Queen and Bess is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1990 biography by Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28405950. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990, 1558, 1603 and 1991.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Good Queen Bess (book)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Good Queen Bess (book) primary sources, Good Queen Bess (book) archive and Good research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Good Queen Bess (book)”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Good Queen Bess (book)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.