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Author: Caroline Blackwood
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0345802632
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
In 1980, Lady Caroline Blackwood was commissioned by The Sunday Times to write an article on the aging Duchess of Windsor, who was said to be convalescing in her French mansion in the Bois de Boulogne. Yet what began as a curiosity was to become for Blackwood one of the most challenging experiences of her writing career, launching her into a battle of wits with the Duchess's formidable lawyer, Maître Suzanne Blum. Maître Blum refused to let Blackwood near the Duchess, spinning elaborate excuses as to why she was unavailable and threatening anyone who dared suggest that she was in anything other than the best of health. Still, while Blum's machinations restricted Blackwood's ability to publish a frank interview, it only served to pique her interest in the bizarre relationship between the infamous Duchess—a woman who once inspired a king to abdicate his crown—and her eccentric, domineering gatekeeper. Sixteen years later, Blackwood turned her experiences into this riveting and excoriating modern classic about the frailties of old age, the foibles of society, and the dual-edged nature of celebrity.
Author: Caroline Blackwood
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0345802632
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Get Book Here
Book Description
In 1980, Lady Caroline Blackwood was commissioned by The Sunday Times to write an article on the aging Duchess of Windsor, who was said to be convalescing in her French mansion in the Bois de Boulogne. Yet what began as a curiosity was to become for Blackwood one of the most challenging experiences of her writing career, launching her into a battle of wits with the Duchess's formidable lawyer, Maître Suzanne Blum. Maître Blum refused to let Blackwood near the Duchess, spinning elaborate excuses as to why she was unavailable and threatening anyone who dared suggest that she was in anything other than the best of health. Still, while Blum's machinations restricted Blackwood's ability to publish a frank interview, it only served to pique her interest in the bizarre relationship between the infamous Duchess—a woman who once inspired a king to abdicate his crown—and her eccentric, domineering gatekeeper. Sixteen years later, Blackwood turned her experiences into this riveting and excoriating modern classic about the frailties of old age, the foibles of society, and the dual-edged nature of celebrity.
Author: Daisy Goodwin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780750534246
Category : Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 524
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Book Description
Gorgeous, spirited and extravagantly rich, Cora Cash is the closest thing 1890s New York society has to a princess. Her masquerade ball is the prelude to a campaign that will see her mother whisk Cora to Europe, where Mrs Cash wants nothing less than a title for her daughter. In England, impoverished blue-bloods are queueing up for introductions to American heiresses, overlooking the sometimes lowly origins of their fortunes. Cora makes a dazzling impression, but the English aristocracy is a realm fraught with arcane rules and pitfalls, and there are those less than eager to welcome a wealthy outsider...
Author: Gabrielle Kimm
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0748116958
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 349
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Book Description
When sixteen-year-old Lucrezia de' Medici marries the fifth Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d'Este, she imagines life with her handsome husband will be idyllic. But little does she know that he is a very complicated man. The marriage is fraught with difficulties from the start, and, as time passes, Lucrezia becomes increasingly alienated. For Alfonso, the pressure mounts as the Vatican threatens to reclaim his title should the couple remain unable to produce an heir. Only his lover Francesca seems able to tame his increasing fury. But Alfonso's growing resentment towards his duchess soon becomes unbearable, and he begins to plot an unthinkable way to escape his problems. Originally inspired by a Robert Browning poem, His Last Duchess gorgeously brings to life the passions and people of sixteenth-century Tuscany and Ferrara. It is a story you are unlikely to forget for a long time.
Author: Wendy Holden
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593200357
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 433
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Book Description
It was a love so strong, a king renounced his kingdom—all for that woman. Or was she just an escape route for a monarch who never wanted to rule? Bestselling author Wendy Holden takes an intimate look at one of the most notorious scandals of the 20th century. 1928. A middle-aged foreigner comes to London with average looks, no money and no connections. Wallis’s first months in the city are lonely, dull and depressing. With no friends of her own she follows the glamorous set in magazines and goes to watch society weddings. Her stuffy husband Ernest’s idea of fun, meanwhile, is touring historic monuments. When an unexpected encounter leads to a house party with the Prince of Wales, Wallis’s star begins to rise. Her secret weapon is her American pep and honesty. For the prince she is a breath of fresh air. As her friendship with him grows, their relationship deepens into love. Wallis is plunged into a world of unimaginable luxury and privilege, enjoying weekends together at his private palace on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Wallis knows the fun and excitement can’t last. The prince will have to marry and she will return to Ernest. The sudden death of George V seems to make this inevitable; the Prince of Wales is now King Edward VIII. When, to her shock and amazement, he refuses to give her up--or recognize that they are facing impossible odds--her fairy tale becomes a nightmare. The royal family close ranks to shut her out and Ernest gives an ultimatum. Wallis finds herself trapped when Edward insists on abdicating his throne. She can’t escape the overwhelming public outrage and villainized, she becomes the woman everyone blames—the face of the most dramatic royal scandal of the twentieth century.
Author: Greg King
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN: 0806535210
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 608
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Book Description
“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
Author: Andrew Morton
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books
ISBN: 1782437231
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 465
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Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Wallis in Love is a vivid, fresh and frankly amazing portrait of Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor. Morton draws on interviews, secret letters, diaries and never before seen or heard primary sources.
Author: Sharon (Sharon Roberta) Stewart
Publisher: Scholastic Canada
ISBN: 9780439961011
Category : Courage
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
The Last Duchess is the touching story of Princess Anastasia and Dunia, two girls whose lives were worlds apart, but whosefriendship lasted a lifetime. When Dunia runs away from her tiny village in the forests of Siberia, she never imagines she'll meet the Tsar of Russia. But before long she's visiting the palace and making friends with the impish young princess, Anastasia. Life couldn't be happier... until the dark clouds of revolution loom over Russia. Could Dunia lose her new world, her new friend - even her own life?
Author: Geoffrey Chaucer
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 50
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Book Description
The Book of the Duchess is a surreal poem that was presumably written as an elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster's (the wife of Geoffrey Chaucer's patron, the royal Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt) death in 1368 or 1369. The poem was written a few years after the event and is widely regarded as flattering to both the Duke and the Duchess. It has 1334 lines and is written in octosyllabic rhyming couplets.
Author: Michael Bloch
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 1405517115
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 112
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Book Description
Royal scandal is nothing new. In 1936, the royal family was rocked by events that threatened its very existence. Edward VIII, King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, Emperor of India, gave up his throne. A constitutional crisis ensued. The reason? He intended to marry Wallis Simpson - a divorcee. In The Duchess of Windsor, Michael Bloch tells her fascinating story. This is the definitive biography of the woman Edward prized above his crown. Drawing on first-hand access to their intimate correspondence, it paints a picture of Simpson which was often startlingly at variance with the official story as reported at the time. It brings vividly to life the qualities which captivated her royal suitor, and on publication caused outrage and surprise by uncovering the great mysteries of her life.
Author: Laura Powell
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
ISBN: 1760554502
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Pattern is only thirteen, but is already rising through the ranks at Mrs Minchin's Academy of Domestic Servitude and seems destined for a life below stairs. But fate intervenes when she is packed off to the small and secretive Duchy of Elffinberg, to serve as lady's maid to the lately orphaned Grand Duchess. Pattern's young new mistress is excitable and paranoid, yet despite their differences the two girls forge an unlikely friendship that quickly turns into a battle for survival. For picture-perfect Elffinberg hides an extremely dark and deadly secret . . . Armed only with her trusty sewing basket, a bottle of smelling salts and J. Bulcock's inestimable guide, The Duties of a Lady's Maid, Pattern will need all her wits and resourcefulness when dealing with above-stairs conspiracies and below-stairs intrigue. Darning stockings has never been so dangerous.
