With pictures and designs from Liliʻuokalani's own photo albums, filled with what were called carte de visite (cards left behind after a social call or exchanged at gatherings) Liliʻuokalani: A Royal Album follows the seventy-nine years of Liliʻuokalani's eventful life, which began in her grandfather's grass-thatched hale on September 2, 1838, and ended in Washington Place on November 11, 1917, her place of refuge in the decades that followed her overthrow.