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Title details for The Duchess of Windsor by Greg King - Available

The Duchess of Windsor

by Greg King
ebook
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"A sympathetic and believable portrait" of the American woman for whom King Edward VIII gave up the throne, with photos included (Christian Science Monitor).

A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compelling situation or challenge, and each marked off by some intense experience.

It was the love story of the century—the king and the commoner. In December 1936, King Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry "the woman I love," Wallis Warfield Simpson, a twice-divorced American who quickly became one of the twentieth century's most famous personalities, a figure of intrigue and mystery, both admired and reviled.

Wrongly blamed for the abdication crisis, Wallis suffered hostility from the Royal Family and much of the world. Yet interest in her story has remained constant, resulting in a small library of biographies that convey a thinly veiled animosity toward their subject. The truth, however, is infinitely more fascinating than the shallow, pathetic portrait that has often been painted.

Using previously untapped sources, acclaimed biographer Greg King presents a complete and, for the first time, sympathetic portrait of the Duchess that sifts the decades of rumor and accusation to reveal the woman behind the legend. From her birth in Pennsylvania during the Gilded Age to her death in Paris in 1986, King takes the reader through a world of privilege, palaces, high society, and love with the accompaniment of hatreds, feuds, conspiracies, and lies. The cast of characters is vast: politicians and presidents, dictators and socialites. Twenty-four pages of photographs reveal the life of the Duchess in all its incomparable glamour and romance.

"A wide, absurd cast of characters—led by the British royal family . . . Wallis' lavish decorati

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 1, 2011

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780806535210

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780806535210
      • File size: 1099 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      April 1, 1999
      It may not be the greatest story ever told, but the tale of the duke and duchess of Windsor (formerly King Edward VIII of Britain and Wallis Warfield Simpson of Baltimore) is certainly one of the most perennial stories ever told. King, author of "The Last Empress" (1994), about the consort of Nicholas II of Russia, and "The Man Who Killed Rasputin" (1995), the story of the murder of the monk who obsessed the last czar and his wife, now throws another biography of the duchess of Windsor into the ring. It is not exactly a whitewash, but it is the author's intention to cast a good light on his subject. The duchess certainly was no villain, and although King seems a little naive in places when it comes to explaining her actions and reasoning, he is right on target when insisting that the royal family did much to damage the duchess' image by undermining her at every possible turn, even long after the abdication. For comprehensive collections of royal history. ((Reviewed April 1, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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