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All This I Promise: Elizabeth II and the Rebirth of Royalty will be
the new book from Alexander Larman, author of The Crown in Crisis
and The Windsors at War, and the conclusion of Larman's 'Windsors
trilogy'. It will begin with the fallout from the revelation of the
Duke of Windsor's wartime treachery, and will end with the
Coronation of Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953. In between, it will
depict a monarchy - and a country - struggling to cope with the
aftermath of World War Two, in an era where old certainties have
been replaced by the rise of a new, uncertain world, and where
love, tragedy and modernity battle for supremacy. All This I
Promise will use the same previously unseen and rare sources as
Larman's previous books, including the Royal Archives at Windsor
Castle, the Churchill College Archives and the Balliol Archives, as
well as the Clement Attlee archives at the Bodleian in Oxford and
the Parliamentary Archives in London. New material will include
extensive unpublished correspondence between major members of the
Royal Family including George VI, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke
of Windsor, the Prime Ministers Clement Attlee and Winston
Churchill, and previously unseen diaries and memoranda from
courtiers, personal secretaries and leading politicians, exploring
everything from the King's declining health to the (often negative)
reactions to Elizabeth's marriage to Prince Philip and Coronation.
All This I Promise will offer the same intricately researched and
incisively written account of Britain's most famous family as
Larman's previous books, but with a panoramic and epic
international scale. It will explore everything from the end of
British rule in India to the foundation of the United Nations, and
the crucial role that monarchy played in the ever-shifting era - as
well, naturally, as the way in which the Duke and Duchess of
Windsor attempted to return to relevance, whatever the cost might
be to the wider Royal Family.
At the outbreak of WW2, the British monarchy was in a state of
turmoil. The previous king, Edward VIII, had abdicated the throne,
leaving his unprepared and terrified brother Bertie to become
George VI. Meanwhile, as the now-Duke of Windsor awaited the decree
that would allow him to marry his mistress Wallis Simpson, he took
an increasing interest in the expansionist plans of the Führer of
Germany. The Windsors at War tells the story of the turbulent and
seismic decade in between 1937 and 1947, including the bombing of
Buckingham Palace in May 1940, the Duke of Windsor's ill-advised
visit to Germany in October 1937 and the death of the Duke of Kent
in a plane crash in August 1942. It answers a simple question: how
did this squabbling, dysfunctional family manage to put their
differences aside and unite to help win the greatest conflict of
their lifetimes?
In December 1936, Britain faced a constitutional crisis that was
the gravest threat to the institution of the monarchy since the
execution of Charles I. The ruling monarch, Edward VIII, wished to
marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson and crown her as his
Queen. His actions scandalised the Establishment, who were
desperate to avoid an international embarrassment at a time when
war seemed imminent. An influential coalition formed against him,
including the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, his private secretary
Alec Hardinge, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the editor of The
Times. Edward seemed fated to give up Wallis and remain a reluctant
ruler, or to abdicate his throne. Yet he had his own supporters,
too, including Winston Churchill, the Machiavellian newspaper
proprietor Lord Beaverbrook and his brilliant adviser Walter
Monckton. They offered him the chance to remain on the throne and
keep Wallis. But was the price they asked too high? Using
previously unpublished and rare archival material, and new
interviews with those who knew Edward and Wallis, THE CROWN IN
CRISIS is the conclusive exploration of how an unthinkable and
unprecedented event tore the country apart. This seismic event has
been written about before but never with the ticking-clock suspense
and pace of the thriller that it undoubtedly was for all of its
participants. Painstakingly researched, incisively written and
entirely fresh in its approach, THE CROWN IN CRISIS brings the
events of that time to thrilling life, and in the process will
appeal to an entirely new audience.
One was the mother who bore him; three were women who adored him;
one was the sister he slept with; one was his abused and sodomized
wife; one was his legitimate daughter; one was the fruit of his
incest; another was his friend Shelley's wife, who avoided his bed
and invented science fiction instead. Nine women; one poet named
George Gordon, Lord Byron - mad, bad and very very dangerous to
know. The most flamboyant of the Romantics, he wrote literary
bestsellers, he was a satirist of genius, he embodied the Romantic
love of liberty (the Greeks revere him as a national hero), he was
the prototype of the modern celebrity - and he treated women (and
these women in particular) abominably. In BYRON AND HIS WOMAN, Alex
Larman tells their extraordinary, moving and often shocking
stories. In so doing, he creates a scurrilous 'anti-biography' of
one of England's greatest poets, whose life is views - to deeply
unflattering effect - through the prism of the nine damaged woman's
lives.
In an England inhabited by Pepys, Evelyn, Dryden, Hobbes and the
young Isaac Newton, Charles II is king, and the nation is beginning
to relax a little after the tough, joyless years of Cromwell's
Protectorate. In RESTORATION, Alex Larman paints a fascinating
portrait of a country in the throes of social, political and
cultural change following the convulsions of the Interregnum.
Exploring every level of English society, from innkeepers and
upholsterers to lawyers and courtiers, and examining themes as
diverse as marriage, sexuality and religion, he creates a
pointilliste and multi-faceted portrait of Restoration England. By
looking at the year 1666 through the eyes of the people of the
time, by revealing what they ate and drank, how they loved, lived
and died and how they interacted, Alex Larman brings alive the
England of 300 years ago as you have never seen it before:
exciting, tangible, and fully comprehensible.
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Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R383
R318
Discovery Miles 3 180
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