This sumptuous book documenting the role of fashion in John Singer Sargent’s work is the next best thing to the landmark exhibition at MFABoston, which reunites portraits like Madame X with the actual antique garments worn in them by Gilded Age socialites. It features essays by academics who offer fascinating insight into how the painter portrayed his subjects’ clothing.

In 1674, workers at the Tower of London unearthed remains believed to be the bones of Edward V, 12, and his brother Richard, 9, who disappeared in 1483. Long believed to have been murdered on the orders of their uncle, Richard III, it’s English history’s greatest cold case, which Phillippa Langley, the historian who discovered Richard III’s skeletal remains, purports to solve. The book chronicles the investigative and forensic process and findings of the global research initiative she established in 2016.

This British writer has a knack for finding arcane and unusual information, and his latest on the lives of the most eccentric English aristocrats was finally published in North America in January. The promise alone! “This lifts the lid on all that’s bizarre, implausible, unthinkable and downright wacky about glorious heritage homes and their unusual occupants.” 

The current Guggenheim Fellow blends fact with fiction to wittily reimagine the lives of two eccentric royal cousins, King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Elisabeth of Austria – a.k.a., Sisi, the famously beautiful 19th-century tastemaker known as the first royal celebrity. Those who avidly binge luscious period series are familiar with her, thanks to Netflix’s popular German costume drama The Empress,  and the recently acclaimed biopic, Corsage. 

Call it keeping up with the Windsors: The ultimate modern royals trivia from the co-hosts of podcast Royally Obsessed is a breezy handbook for watchers of The Crown (and regular readers of the Daily Mail’s ongoing chronicles), organized by branch of the family tree – the Cambridges, Sussexes and so on.

As she did with The Heiress, the Michigan author has penned one of the best historical novels of the year, set in the French royal court of Catherine de’ Medici during the Renaissance. The lyrical writing recreates the true and surprising love story of courtiers Catherine and Pedro Gonzales that inspired the Beauty and the Beast legend.

Taking Hampton Court Palace as his lens to consider generations of British monarchic history, from its 16th-century construction under Henry VIII and the Tudors to the Windsors, the popular historian leads a journey through the social, economic and political history room by room, where the history was made.

We could hardly put it better than the New York Times’ review of the British cultural historian’s romp through artistic and upper-class luminaries playground: “This breathtaking account of the transformations of the French Riviera over the last two millenniums is like riding shotgun with a racecar driver in the Monaco Grand Prix.” Craving more Riviera reads? This Zed listicle has got you covered.

Stamps, ceremonial regalia and the Domesday Book: A thousand years of royal lineage gets distilled into 100 well-chosen objects by this British guidebook author, organized chronologically by monarch, from Alfred the Great to Queen Elizabeth II.

While the hostesses in The Gilded Age, everyone’s favourite low-stakes period drama, fret about serving soup at dinner, their counterpoint is the formidable but forgotten female figure from the era: self-made publishing tycoon Miriam Leslie. She was a pioneer in an all-male industry and ran the country’s largest purveyor of weeklies and monthlies for 20 years. If you’re listening, Julian Fellowes: Leslie’s colourful transgressive life included lovers, and a divorce that left her entire multimillion-dollar fortune to women’s suffrage. She deserves an episode of her own. 

Rosen’s previous bestseller, The Social Graces, imagined the Gilded Age rivalry between the Astors and the Vanderbilts, and her latest is also a study in contrasts. Rosen unfurls the story of the young Estée Lauder in the scrappy early days of her business empire, told through a fictional salesgirl, Gloria, who works at luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue in 1938 and forms an unlikely friendship with the ambitious beauty entrepreneur. Determined to join high society, Lauder would go on to form the behemoth cosmetics company.

The next volume in Larman’s biographical chronicle of the Windsor family finds them at a crossroads at the beginning of 1937, with Prince Edward,  Duke of Windsor, far too interested in Adolf Hitler’s expansionist plans for the liking of his brother, King George VI. It’s a chapter in how the squabbling, dysfunctional and divided family behaved during the Second World War (and wavered at critical moments).

Ryan Murphy’s latest examination of clashing personalities is the forthcoming Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (Jan. 31 on Disney+), exploring the tart-tongued society chronicler’s epic falling-out with his coterie of upper-crust New York mavens. I usually highlight books published this calendar year, but make an exception here, because this title from 2021 is both a delight and comprehensive. Murphy clearly thought so, too: It forms the basis of his eight-part series.