Behind Closed Doors

Préface
The tragic, untold story of the Duchess of Windsor

Auteur

Hugo Vickers

Texte du rabat

Paperback edition of Vickers' biography of the Duchess of Windsor, aka Mrs Simpson, whose marriage to Edward VIII forced him to abdicate in 1936. A tragic story, Vickers makes it clear that Mrs Simpson did not lure the king from the throne, and relates how she was ruthlessly exploited by a French lawyer after the death of her husband. Madonna's film about Wallis Simpson is due out this year.

Résumé

Hugo Vickers has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Royal Family, and has had a fascination with the story of the Duchess of Windsor since he was a young man. There have been a number of books about this doomed couple, but this book brings a new perspective on the story by focussing on the later years of exile.

While Vickers has his own theories about the Abdication itself, and he makes it very clear that Mrs Simpson did not lure the King from the throne, the drama of this narrative comes from the criminal exploitation of an old sick woman after the death of her husband. She was ruthlessly exploited by a French lawyer called Suzanne Blum. Some members of the Royal Family, like Mountbatten and the Queen Mother, don't emerge with much credit either.

Hugo Vickers relates a tragic story which has lost none of its resonance over the years since the Duchess died in 1986.