Most historians agree that sixteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey did not want to be Queen. The present account of her life shows her really fearing the Crown as something evil, something embodying all the terrors of half-forgotten bogies of her earliest childhood. Yet the Crown drew the hapless child to it as a poisonous plant draws a helpless insect.

Shown against the rich trappings of the court of Henry VIII, little Jane Grey, daughter of the scheming Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, knew only the love given her by Queen Katherine Parr. After the Queen's death the child was married to young Guildford Dudley, another pawn of parental scheming.

Finally Jane was crowned Queen and immediately Mary Tudor, rightful heir to the throne, closed in. Both Jane and her young husband were accused of treason, were arrested, condemned and beheaded.

No young person reading Lady Jane's piteous, courageous story can fail to retain a vivid picture of the Reformation period.

From the dust jacket