Diana
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
*20th anniversary edition featuring a new afterword*
Glamour. Duty. Tragedy: The Woman Behind the Princess.
Sarah Bradford delivers an authoritative and explosive study of the greatest icon of the twentieth century: Diana.
After more than a decade interviewing those closest to the Princess and her select circle, Sarah Bradford exposes the real Diana: the blighted childhood, the old-fashioned courtship which saw her capture the Prince of Wales, the damage caused by the spectre of Camilla Parker Bowles, through to the collapse of the royal marriage and Diana's final and complicated year as single woman.
Diana paints an honest portrait of a woman riddled with contradictions and whose vulnerability and unique empathy with the suffering made her one of the most extraordinary figures of the modern age.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This biography of the doomed Princess of Wales by Bradford, an experienced British celebrity biographer, was published with far less fanfare, though also embargoed, than the concurrent one by Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, it still purports to be the definitive look at what it was really like for Diana Spencer to become the princess of Wales. But even the most casual student of Diana mania will be hard pressed to find much that hasn't been told before. Bradford, the author of books about such disparate figures as Benjamin Disraeli and Princess Grace of Monaco, does offer up a more balanced portrait than some: Diana was not the brightest bulb, but her compassion for others was central and real; in spite of or because of this sensitivity, she was a master at playing people off each other (most notably her onetime lover James Hewitt). According to Bradford, Diana truly did love Charles and was "obsessed" with him until the end. More surprisingly, Bradford also insists that Charles genuinely loved Diana, even as he carried a torch for Camilla Parker Bowles, and that his apparent ill treatment of his wife came from ignorance more than hostility. The usual cast of famous characters appear, but two portraits particularly stand out: Sarah Ferguson and Dodi Fayed. As for Fayed, Bradford downplays it; Diana liked him, she says, but was far less interested in him, personally, than in what he could provide (private yachts, freedom from the press and ironically, as it turned out safety). Surely, Fayed's friends and family will not enjoy Bradford's take on him as a spoiled layabout with a cocaine problem, drug use being one the few weaknesses of which Diana disapproved. For those for whom there can never be enough said about the late princess, Bradford's book may provide some color and perspective; those looking for dish will likely be disappointed.
