Download or read book Ma am Darling written by Craig Brown and published by Fourth Estate. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR * A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR * A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR * A DAILY MAIL BOOK OF THE YEAR 'An original, memorable and substantial achievement' TLS'A masterpiece' Mail on Sunday'I honked so loudly the man sitting next to me dropped his sandwich' ObserverShe made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. John Fowles hoped to keep her as his sex-slave. Dudley Moore propositioned her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was in love with her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy. "If they knew what I had done in my dreams with your royal ladies" he confided to a friend, "they would take me to the Tower of London and chop off my head!" Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding. In her 1950's heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman. The tale of Princess Margaret is pantomime as tragedy, and tragedy as pantomime. It is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled. Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues and essays, Ma'am Darling is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography, and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society. 'Brown has been our best parodist and satirist for decades now ... Ma'am Darling is, as you would expect, very funny; also, full of quirky facts and genial footnotes. Brown has managed to ingest huge numbers of royal books and documents without losing either his judgment or his sanity. He adores the spectacle of human vanity' Julian Barnes, Guardian

Download or read book Princess Margaret written by Christopher Warwick and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Princess Margaret was one of the most controversial royal figures of the twentieth century. Widely admired as a young woman, she was famous for her beauty and charisma, but also for her sense of loyalty and duty. The charismatic Princess not only brought colour and sex appeal into an otherwise colourless royal family, but did much to help bring the monarchy and its attitudes into the modern world. In recent years, dogged by accidents and ill-health, much of the Princess's youthful vigour and charm, not to mention her hard work, has been forgotten. Following her death on 9 February, in the Queen's golden jubilee year, and poignantly close to the anniversary of George VI's death, the story of her life is once again front pages news. In this fully updated memorial edition of his acclaimed study, originally undertaken with the co-operation of the Princess and many of those closest to her, her authorized biographer Christopher Warwick looks again at the life and work of this enigmatic and individual royal figure, and brings her story to a close with her funeral in Windsor. is a fitting tribute to an exceptional, deeply complex woman.

Download or read book Princess Margaret written by Theo Aronson and published by Lume Books. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was Princess Margaret a royal rebel or the victim of an unfulfilling station? Whatever conclusion we draw, she remains arguably the most interesting member of the British royal family. As second in line to the throne for many years, Margaret was born with every possible advantage - beauty, vivacity, intelligence, wealth and position. Yet her nature, as one intimate has put it, "was to make everything go wrong." She has been described as tragic, unresolved, a royal maverick, a woman of conflict, a princess without a cause. Her private life has been racked by scandal; it has been a catalogue of unhappy, unfulfilled and unsuitable relationships. Her many good points have been submerged in an avalanche of criticism. Dauntingly royal yet defiantly unorthodox, Princess Margaret has spent the greater part of her life torn between meeting the exacting standards of the monarchy and flouting its long-established conventions. Princess Margaret: A Biography is the first detailed, in-depth study of this controversial figure, written by a respected royal biographer.

Download or read book Lady in Waiting written by Anne Glenconner and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2020-03-24 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover untold secrets with this extraordinary memoir of drama and tragedy by Anne Glenconner—a close member of the royal circle and lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret. Anne Glenconner has been at the center of the royal circle from childhood, when she met and befriended the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, the Princess Margaret. Though the firstborn child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, who controlled one of the largest estates in England, as a daughter she was deemed "the greatest disappointment" and unable to inherit. Since then she has needed all her resilience to survive court life with her sense of humor intact. A unique witness to landmark moments in royal history, Maid of Honor at Queen Elizabeth's coronation, and a lady in waiting to Princess Margaret until her death in 2002, Anne's life has encompassed extraordinary drama and tragedy. In Lady in Waiting, she will share many intimate royal stories from her time as Princess Margaret's closest confidante as well as her own battle for survival: her broken-off first engagement on the basis of her "mad blood"; her 54-year marriage to the volatile, unfaithful Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, who left his fortune to a former servant; the death in adulthood of two of her sons; a third son she nursed back from a six-month coma following a horrific motorcycle accident. Through it all, Anne has carried on, traveling the world with the royal family, including visiting the White House, and developing the Caribbean island of Mustique as a safe harbor for the rich and famous-hosting Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Raquel Welch, and many other politicians, aristocrats, and celebrities. With unprecedented insight into the royal family, Lady in Waiting is a witty, candid, dramatic, at times heart-breaking personal story capturing life in a golden cage for a woman with no inheritance. New York Times Bestseller USA Today Bestseller The Sunday Times Bestseller The Globe and Mail Bestseller ABA Indie Bestseller The Times (UK) Memoir of the Year One of Newsweek's Most Anticipated Books of 2020

Download or read book The Wicked Wit of Princess Margaret written by Karen Dolby and published by Michael O'Mara Books. This book was released on 2018-05-17 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrate the rapier-like wit of the royal rebel, the late, great Princess Margaret - or 'Ducky' as she was known behind closed doors.

Download or read book Elizabeth Margaret written by Andrew Morton and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfect for fans of The Crown, this captivating biography from a New York Times bestselling author follows Queen Elizabeth II and her sister Margaret as they navigate life in the royal spotlight. They were the closest of sisters and the best of friends. But when, in a quixotic twist of fate, their uncle Edward Vlll decided to abdicate the throne, the dynamic between Elizabeth and Margaret was dramatically altered. Forever more Margaret would have to curtsey to the sister she called 'Lillibet.' And bow to her wishes. Elizabeth would always look upon her younger sister's antics with a kind of stoical amusement, but Margaret's struggle to find a place and position inside the royal system—and her fraught relationship with its expectations—was often a source of tension. Famously, the Queen had to inform Margaret that the Church and government would not countenance her marrying a divorcee, Group Captain Peter Townsend, forcing Margaret to choose between keeping her title and royal allowances or her divorcee lover. From the idyll of their cloistered early life, through their hidden war-time lives, into the divergent paths they took following their father's death and Elizabeth's ascension to the throne, this book explores their relationship over the years. Andrew Morton's latest biography offers unique insight into these two drastically different sisters—one resigned to duty and responsibility, the other resistant to it—and the lasting impact they have had on the Crown, the royal family, and the ways it adapted to the changing mores of the 20th century.

Download or read book Royal Sisters written by Anne Edwards and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Royal Sisters, Anne Edwards, author of the best-selling Vivien Leigh: A Biography and Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor, has written the first dual biography of Elizabeth, the princess who was to become Queen, and her younger sister, Margaret, who was to be her subject. From birth to maturity, they were the stuff of which dreams are made. “I’m three and you’re four,” the future Queen, then a child, imperiously informed her sister. The younger girl, not understanding this reference to their position in the succession, proudly countered, “No, you’re not. I’m three, you’re seven.” The royal sisters had no choice in their historic positions, but behind the palace gates and within the all-too-human confines of their personalities, they displayed tremendous individuality and suffered the usual symptoms of sibling rivalry. Royal Sisters provides an unprecedented and intimate portrait of these most famous siblings during their formative and dramatic youthful years. It is also one of the twentieth century’s most fascinating stories of sisterly loyalty. Edwards’s book is an honest look at how the royal sisters feel toward each other, their parents, their close relations and the men whom they have loved. It openly discusses, with new insights and information, the romance of Elizabeth and Philip and the tragic aborted love affair between Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend, and it has a cast of characters ranging from the youthful sisters’ suitors to Winston Churchill and the entire Royal Family. It is also the story of the making of a queen, of the high drama of her situation in the Townsend affair, of the real effect their uncle’s abdication had on the sisters’ lives, and of the internecine feuds that have brewed within the Royal Family since that time. Brought vividly to life through the many personal interviews of close royal associates, filled with new facts, previously unpublished anecdotes and photographs, Royal Sisters is a never-before-glimpsed look at the relationship of the Queen and Princess Margaret.

Download or read book Princess Margaret written by Tim Heald and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2022-05-05 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elegant and sophisticated biography of Princess Margaret, the controversial sister of Queen Elizabeth II, the Princess Diana of her day 'A fascinating insight into the life of the party girl who became an icon in postwar Britain' DAILY EXPRESS 'She was a witty, intelligent, stimulating companion - happily Tim Heald captures all these qualities in his admirably well-balanced biography' LITERARY REVIEW The almost universal conception is that the life of Princess Margaret (1930-2002) was a tragic failure, a history of unfulfilment. Tim Heald's vivid and elegant biography portrays a woman who was beautiful and sexually alluring - even more so than Princess Diana, years later - and whose reputation for naughtiness co-existed with the glamour. The mythology is that Margaret's life was 'ruined' by her not being allowed to marry the one true love of her life - Group Captain Peter Townsend - and that therefore her marriage to Lord Snowdon and her well-attested relationships with Roddy Llewellyn and others were mere consolation prizes. Margaret's often exotic personal life in places like Mustique is a key part of her story. The author has had extraordinary help from those closest to Princess Margaret, including her family (Lord Snowdon and her son, Lord Linley), as well as three of her private secretaries and many of her ladies in waiting. These individuals have not talked to any previous biographer. He has also had the Queen's permission to use the royal archives. Heald asks why one of the most famous and loved little girls in the world, who became a juvenile wartime sweetheart, ended her life a sad wheelchair-bound figure, publicly reviled and ignored. This is a story of a life in which the private and the public seemed permanently in conflict. The biography is packed with good stories. Princess Margaret was never ignored; what she said and did has been remembered and recounted to Tim Heald.

Download or read book The Royals written by Kitty Kelley and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2009-10-31 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times bestselling, controversial portrait of the British royal family -- as told from behind the palace walls -- for fans of Netflix's The Crown and all royal watchers They are the most chronicled family on the face of the globe. Their every move attracts headlines. Now Kitty Kelley has gone behind the scenes at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Kensington Palace to raise the curtain on the men and women who make up the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, Princess Diana...here are the scandals of the last decades: the doomed marriages and the husbands, wives, lovers and children caught in their wake and damaged beyond repair. No one is spared.

Download or read book The Little Princesses written by Marion Crawford and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-04-10 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the childhoods and early adulthoods of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, as told by one of their primary caregivers, offers insight into early twentieth-century British royal life.

Download or read book The Other Tudor Princess written by Mary McGrigor and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2015-01-05 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Other Tudor Princess brings to life the story of Margaret Douglas, a shadowy and mysterious character in Tudor history – but who now takes centre stage in this tale of the bitter struggle for power during the reign of Henry VIII. Margaret is Henry's beloved niece, but she defies the king by indulging in two scandalous affairs and is imprisoned in the Tower of London on three occasions 'not for matters of treason, but for love'. Yet, when Henry turns against his second wife Anne Boleyn and declares his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, bastards, it is Margaret he appoints as his heir to the throne. The arrangement of the marriage of Margaret's son, Lord Darnley, to his cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots unites their claim to the throne and infuriates Queen Elizabeth. Yet this match brings tragedy, as Margaret's son is brutally murdered. As Margaret reaches old age, her place in the dynasty is still not safe, and she dies in mysterious circumstances – was Margaret poisoned on the orders of Queen Elizabeth? Mary McGrigor tells this compelling and exciting part of Tudor history for the first time with all the passion and thrill of a novel, but this is no fiction – the untold story runs through the course of history, and Margaret secured the throne for her Stuart ancestors for years to come.

Download or read book Princess Margaret a Life Unfulfilled written by Nigel Dempster and published by MacMillan Publishing Company. This book was released on 1982 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930? 9 February 2002), was the only sibling of Queen Elizabeth II and the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother ... After the war, Margaret fell in love with a recently divorced commoner 16 years her elder, Group Captain Peter Townsend, her father's equerry. Her father died in 1952, and her sister became queen. Margaret told her sister in early 1953 that she wished to marry Townsend. Many in the government felt that Townsend would be an unsuitable husband for the Queen's 22-year-old sister, and the Church of England refused to countenance the marriage to a divorced man. Her sister's coronation was pending, and Elizabeth asked Margaret to wait a year. Margaret eventually abandoned her plans, and, in 1960, accepted the proposal of the photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, who was created Earl of Snowdon by Elizabeth II. The marriage, despite an auspicious start, soon became unhappy. The couple divorced in 1978, and Margaret never remarried. Margaret was often viewed as a controversial member of the royal family. Her divorce earned her negative publicity, and she was romantically linked with several men. Her health gradually deteriorated in the final two decades of her life; a heavy smoker all her adult life, she had a lung operation in 1985, a bout of pneumonia in 1993, and at least three strokes between 1998 and 2001"--Wikipedia.

Download or read book Princess Margaret and Her Family written by Ruth Jordan and published by Robert Hale. This book was released on 1974 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Princess Margaret written by Helen Cathcart and published by Sapere Books. This book was released on 2021-08-13 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling biography of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. A tribute to an extraordinary life of faith, love and royal duty. Ideal for readers of Hugo Vickers, Philip Ziegler and Anne Glenconner's Lady in Waiting. Loyal sister and friend to Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret grew up in the public gaze and during her lifetime was one of the most-discussed women in the world. But what was early life like for the younger sibling of the future monarch? And what role did she carve for herself within the Royal Family? Royal biographer Helen Cathcart offers a fascinating personal study of the first four decades of the Princess' life, from her birth at Glamis Castle and phenomenal childhood popularity in the nostalgic era of 'the two little princesses', through watching her parents crowned in Westminster Abbey and dancing among the crowds after her sister's Coronation. The author casts crucial new light on 'the Townsend affair', a crisis once compared with that of the Duke of Windsor, and the culminating love story of the Princess and the young photographer, Antony Armstrong-Jones. Against the changing scenes of royal palaces, Thames-side hideaways and Caribbean islands, and with deep family insight, Princess Margaret is the definitive inner story of the Queen's beloved sister, charismatic and unconventional, yet always her steadfast self. 'Wide acclaim as a royal biographer ... objective, uninhibited and penetrating' - Sunday Express 'Helen Cathcart writes about royalty as if she were one of them' - The Daily Mail 'The doyenne of royal biographers' - The Daily Telegraph 'A tireless chronicler of royalty' - The Guardian

Download or read book A Secret Princess written by Margaret Stohl and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A surprising and romantic YA retelling-mashup of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by bestselling authors Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz. Best friends Mary Lennox, Sara Crewe, and Cedric Erroll are best friends. And thank goodness, since their boarding school is basically insufferable. When one of the friends suffers a personal tragedy, a plan—and a secret—change everything for the trio . . . for good. Filled with charm and romance, and inspired by some of classic literature's most beloved characters, The Secret Princess is the perfect blend of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden—and the perfect companion to Jo & Laurie.

Download or read book Margaret The Last Real Princess written by Noel Botham and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-25 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Princess Margaret was not like the other royals. A free spirit, she broke away from the conventions that others imposed upon her and lived a life that has seemed to some scandalous, to others liberating.It was Margaret who had an illicit love affair with jazz musician Robin Douglas-Home and letters from that relationship are reprinted here. When Douglas-Home was rejected by Margaret, he killed himself and was replaced by another lover.It is stories such as this, revealed in this book, that paint a portrait of one of the most secretive members of Britain's royal family.

Download or read book The Other Windsor Girl written by Georgie Blalock and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named One of the Best Books of the Week by the New York Post! In a historical debut evoking the style of The Crown, the daughter of an impoverished noble is swept into the fame and notoriety of the royal family and Princess Margaret's fast-living friends when she is appointed as Margaret's second Lady-in-Waiting. Diana, Catherine, Meghan…glamorous Princess Margaret outdid them all. Springing into post-World War II society, and quite naughty and haughty, she lived in a whirlwind of fame and notoriety. Georgie Blalock captures the fascinating, fast-living princess and her “set” as seen through the eyes of one of her ladies-in-waiting. In dreary, post-war Britain, Princess Margaret captivates everyone with her cutting edge fashion sense and biting quips. The royal socialite, cigarette holder in one hand, cocktail in the other, sparkles in the company of her glittering entourage of wealthy young aristocrats known as the Margaret Set, but her outrageous lifestyle conflicts with her place as Queen Elizabeth’s younger sister. Can she be a dutiful princess while still dazzling the world on her own terms? Post-war Britain isn’t glamorous for The Honorable Vera Strathmore. While writing scandalous novels, she dreams of living and working in New York, and regaining the happiness she enjoyed before her fiancé was killed in the war. A chance meeting with the Princess changes her life forever. Vera amuses the princess, and what—or who—Margaret wants, Margaret gets. Soon, Vera gains Margaret’s confidence and the privileged position of second lady-in-waiting to the Princess. Thrust into the center of Margaret’s social and royal life, Vera watches the princess’s love affair with dashing Captain Peter Townsend unfurl. But while Margaret, as a member of the Royal Family, is not free to act on her desires, Vera soon wants the freedom to pursue her own dreams. As time and Princess Margaret’s scandalous behavior progress, both women will be forced to choose between status, duty, and love…