Margaret Thatcher

The Authorized Biography

Charles Moore

In 1997, seven years after the end of her premiership, Margaret Thatcher chose the journalist and political commentator Charles Moore to write her authorized biography, on condition it would not be published in her lifetime.

Charles Moore was given full access to all Lady Thatcher’s personal and government papers. He interviewed her and her family extensively and she supported all his requests for interviews with those who worked most closely with her, interviews given in the knowledge that Lady Thatcher would never read the manuscript. Permission was also granted to former and existing civil servants to speak freely about her years in government and the author was given early access to official papers held back from public view under the thirty-year rule.

Moore’s account, the first of two volumes, begins at the moment of her birth in October 1925 and ends with what was perhaps her finest hour – victory in the Falklands in 1982.

It paints, for the first time, a fully-rounded picture of one of the towering political figures of the 20^th century - but who also had to fight hard to cling on to power in the early years of her premiership.

First published:: 2013
Published by:: Allen Lane
Length:: Hardcover 880 pages

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About the author

Charles Moore was born in 1956 and educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read History. He joined the staff of the Daily Telegraph in 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher came to power, and as a political columnist in the 1980s, he covered several years of Mrs Thatcher's first and second governments. From 1984-90 he was Editor of the Spectator; from 1992-95 Editor of the Sunday Telegraph; and from 1995 to 2003 Editor of the Daily Telegraph, for which he is still a regular columnist. He is lives in Sussex with his wife, Caroline, and they have grown-up twins. This is his first book.