Elizabeth II is Queen regnant of Great Britain from 1952 to the present. She ascended the throne on February 6, 1952 at the age of twenty-five, and is today the longest reigning monarch in British history.

Initially, no one thought that she would become queen, because she was the third in the line of succession to the throne. Therefore, Elizabeth managed to spend a relatively carefree childhood.

Collected here are some of the earliest photographs of Elizabeth taken in the 1940s. In these photos, Elizabeth is no longer a little girl and not yet a queen, but real princess, very similar to the princesses from fairy tales and cartoons.