Kate Hubbard was born in London in 1963. After completing a degree at Oxford University she worked variously as a researcher, a teacher, a book reviewer and a publisher’s reader. She is currently a freelance editor. Kate Hubbard’s first book was a character study of Bess of Hardwick called A Material Girl, published by Faber & Faber in 2001. This was followed, in 2004, by two children’s books: a biography of Charlotte Bronte and a biography of Queen Victoria both published by Short Books Ltd. In 2007, Hubbard published a fictionalised diary of Russia’s last grand duchess, Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, entitled, Rubies in the Snow. Her immersive portrait of Queen Victoria’s court, Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household, was published in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award. Kate Hubbard divides her time between Dorset and London. Her full-length biography of Bess of Hardwick, titled Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England, was published in November 2018.

Books in order of publication:

A Material Girl: Bess of Hardwick, 1527-1608 (2001).

Charlotte Bronte: The Girl Who Turned Her Life Into a Book (2001).

Queen Victoria: The Woman Who Ruled the World (2003).

Annie Oakley (2004).

Rubies in the Snow (2007).

Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household (2012).

The Story of Queen Victoria (2017).

Devices & Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabeth England (2018).