Queen Camilla has hosted a reception for tiny books. Yes, you read that correctly. Tiny books.
Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House – the largest and most famous Dolls’ House in the world – has been on display for visitors to Windsor Castle since its creation in 1924, and features a Library filled with miniature books handwritten by some of the 1920s’ foremost writers.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Vita Sackville-West, A. A. Milne and Thomas Hardy, for instance.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, and so, in honour of that, Camilla asked various leading writers and illustrators to create 20 tiny books to establish a Modern-Day Miniature Library within the Dolls’ House.
The new tiny books include short story collections, poetry collections, illustrated tales, plays, articles and recipes, and many were either inspired by the Dolls’ House or written specially for the anniversary.
Camilla herself also contributed a tiny book: a handwritten introduction to the Modern-Day Miniature Library project that features a gold-tooled miniature version of Her Majesty’s cypher on the cover.
Other contributors to the Modern-Day Miniature Library include Lucy Caldwell, Imtiaz Dharker, Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler, Anthony Horowitz, Sir Ben Okri, Dame Jacqueline Wilson and Tom Parker Bowles – Camilla’s son.
Tom, a food writer, provided a handwritten recipe for roast chicken and potatoes in his tiny book and titled it A Recipe Fit for a Queen.
On January 30, 2024, the aforementioned reception hosted by Camila, was held to celebrate the new tiny books being added to Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House as well as to celebrate all of the authors who contributed to the project.
According to the Telegraph, Camilla joked that reading tiny books was damaging her eyesight but then thanked all of them for their help.
“I’m thrilled by this and I hope you’ll all be very, very proud of what you’ve done,” she said.
“As a child, seeing the dolls’ house for the first time, I was always fascinated by the books. The idea of actually seeing these writers, actually seeing their writing, was huge excitement – looking at it and thinking actually that was Conan Doyle and whoever.”
