Customer Reviews

Duchess Of Windsor

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
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How History portrays Edward V111 and Mrs Simpson will probably vary somewhat - but this book from Charles Higham is an excellent starting point for history buffs.
With the passing of time, more and documents are being made available for perusal from a wide range of sources. The Governments of Britain,Germany, Austria and Italy for starters.
Then add Buckingham Palace letters and documents,and the views of FDR and the Whitehouse staff, Winston Churchill,Hitler et al.
The level of research can make or break a biography and this one succeeds because of Higham's thoroughness.
It has always been clear to me that the Duchess had no idea what she was embarking on when she became involved with Prince Edward.
She was vilified,loathed, shut off from the Royal family.
At various times during her life she experienced real despair and depression.
Their lives became empty and meaningless - just endless rounds of entertaining and being entertained.
Many of the upper class in England were Nazi sympathisers, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were no exception.
It was this allegiance that was the root cause of all their problems, as British and American spys kept abreast of their activities,their friendships and of course the notoriety they received when visiting Germany did not go unnoticed.
It was because of this concern they were in effect banished to the Bahamas and had their requests to travel abroad refused or at least severely curtailed.
The Duke seemed to forget the promises he made when he abdicated. He was born to be King and the reality of NOT being King was something he never managed to adjust to. He thought that he and Wallis would return to England to live but his support of Germany and plotting with the Germans to again become King should Britain lose the war, was well known to George V1 and to Churchill, and thus a return to his homeland became an impossibility.
The most revealing access to the character of the Duchess of Windsor were in her letters to her Aunt Bessie. On one occasion she was complaining bitterly about the Bahamas, and the house etc, never once mentioning the war and the hard times people were experiencing.
On another occasion a visiting British friend mentioned the London bombings, loss of life etc and the Duchess' response was along the lines of why should she care, the British had made her life hell and she would never forgive them etc.
Interestingly enough, Wallis was regarded as a spy of long standing, and her later annual trips to America were viewed with alarm by the US government and she was constantly under surveillance.
Both the Windsors spoke fluent German and yet despite living in France for many years,they knew only a few words of French.
This book shows Wallis as a woman of expensive tastes,very chic beautifully groomed, and a fine hostess of great taste and style.
Many who knew them well noted that the Duke was besotted by her but she less so with him. Then again, when his final illness struck him down,the Duchess of Windsor was there for the Duke until the last.

I ordered it without realizing this is the exact same biography on the Duchess of Windsor I read about ten years ago but the book seems to have been so updated with new facts it really is worth buying the newer version. She really was a tenacious and riveting woman...no wonder the King left his throne for her. I would have done the same. I find the authors writing to be very unbiased...he does not seem to approve of the politics or the activities of the Duke and Duchess very much, but he gives a very balanced presentation of the facts. Like most people born after world war 2, anyone who supported the Nazi's was automatically evil in my mind but this book caused me to reconsider such a snap judgement. The arguments presented for why so muchof the European elite and American elite supported Hitler are very sound. Fascism was just another right wing philosophy...most of the royals and aristocrats who believed in Hitler were not interested in committing genocide. Hitler went off on the rails on his own in that aspect.

In addition to being insightful and gossipy, this book made me revise some of my own opinions.

At the time, the "romance of the century" was seen through the lenses of love. Behind the scenes, however, Edward VIII of England was a weak man totally in the thrall of a domineering and dangerous woman, Bessie Wallis Simpson. (Thank heaven, she dropped the Bessie.) When he abdicated and became the Duke of Windsor, he and his Duchess became not only roving mooches, seeking out wealthy patrons to pay their way, they were Nazi collaborators. They could have lived within their means, except she had an insatiable desire to live like a queen -- including the jewelry to go with it.

Meticulously researched, this tells the story of how they fell into the thrall of Hitler -- even visitng him and giving the vile salute all over Germany. The Duke of Windsor was not unlike many Englishmen who had been through the horror of WWI. Anything was better than another war, even that horrid little man with the funny mustache. As well, many Brits were afraid that Hitler was the only thing standing between them and Communism, a bogeyman of epic proportions. Besides, he treated them like "royalty" so they were silly enough to fall for him, hook, line and sinker. They thought he's just expel the Jews -- no one really liked them anyway. Much better they go to America. (I kid you not, this is what they thought.)

This book not only details the romance, the abdication, the involvement with Nazis, but their petty and petulant view that she should have the HRH before her name. This went on until her death!!! Give it up, guys. Not gonna happen. She embarrassed a nation.

Personally, I enjoyed the book and am glad that he wasn't on the throne. He was a weak, insipid and dangerous man. Far better his stammering but clear headed brother -- George VI, Queen Elizabeth's father.

Sometimes a person just deserves to have a [...] gossipy book written about them... and Wallis Simpson is one of those people! Charles Higham spent his time dredging up all the best bits about this horrid woman and poured them into one great read. We hear about everything here: the rumors of her serial adultery and fooling around (even on the man who gave up a kingdom for her -- "stupid is as stupid does"), the possible lesbianic interludes, the possibility that she was a man (if my memory serves me correctly)... Its all here. Nothing is more hilarious than the description of how much Wally hated thier posting to the Bahamas (where Govt House was filled with sand) - the on time that Wally had the oppportunity to semi-officially play queen. How the Queen Mother must have checkled thinking about it. This is a hatchet job of the highest order, not only on her but on that dining room table of a third husband she married. One thing we can all be thankful to Wallis Simpson is that she got David out of England - where he might have really done some damage.

I really enjoyed this book, especially since it's been re-released with some de-classified information. A lot people got carried away (at that time) by the romance and even though I wasn't around, I'm surprised they didn't re-open the Tower of London and throw them in just for being pro-Nazi sympathizers. I can feel some pity for the Duke, but not the Duchess. I don't believe she wanted to marry him, but was happy to be his Royal Mistress.

I was in the mood to read some hashed-over gossip and innuendo, so this book should have suited me fine. It's long on innuendo and short on proven facts, but I'm not complaining. I never much cared for the Duchess of Windsor, and this book hasn't done much to improve her standing in my eyes. Nuff said.

My main gripe is that the Kindle edition is just plain sloppy. Some paragraphs are indented, some aren't.

I was about to complain that there were also hyphens in inappropriate places which made it hard to read, but the iPad just synced itself, and that problem seems to have cured itself.

Someone else mentioned that Kindle has a return policy. I may just do that, because I think this book is really overpriced for what you get. (I did read the free sample, which was good. The book goes down hill after the middle.)

This book came out about 12 years ago and it was presented in a beautiful hardcover jacket.I read it as a novel and it fascinated me.The writing and the pictures are great.The story on the other hand is about this unpleasant and ugly woman, who stole the heart of a king.Mr. Higham wrote it beautifully,unfortunately she was not a very likeable person.Whether some of the stories are true or not, we shall never know. Like the duke running around in diapers....Read it if you are interested in British History.Sadly Wallis is in it.The Duke on the other hand gave an impression of being somebody without character, extremely weak,and a puppet in Simpson's hands.

Having read other books by and about the Windsors, I picked this book up hoping to get some of the back-story the other books omitted. I got that, and Higham is to be commended for his dogged research in that regard. There are stories of secret dossiers and unsavory activities that more or less confirm not only was Britain better off without Edward VIII but also that the American Revolution was a mighty good idea. Having said that, I must point out that the writing in this book is very uneven. Some chapters or portions thereof are well-crafted. Others seem like first drafts that were rushed into publication with small regard for judicious editing. It makes for choppy reading. One goes along smoothly for a while and then it is as if one is off on some gravel paved road that winds through uncharted verbiage. The fact that David and Wally were not much more than cafe society meanderers and also rans in their later years makes the account of their lives post abdication crisis anticlimactic, to say the least.

This book was so difficult to read on the Kindle (2nd generation) that I am about a third through and am pretty much ready to give up reading it because of the technical problems with this book in Kindle form. For some reason almost every sentence that begins with a capital H has the H separated into two parts; some on two separate lines. Words are "random-ly" hyphenated and sentences here and there are hi-lighted for some unknown reason. At first I thought it was all some kind of foreign language that I didn't recognize before I realized it was a technical problem with the Kindle type-set. I've seen this before in some Kindle books but not to this extent. This is kind of an interesting book but there are so many characters it's hard to keep it all straight and the author calls the people by one name sometimes and another at others and it's just all pretty confusing. It has interesting parts but overall, I don't think it's worth the effort.

"The Duchess of Windsor: The Secret Life" purports to shed scandalous light on the life and times of Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson Windsor. Higham paints the Duchess as a sometime spy, a Nazi-sympathizing party girl, and the dominating figure in the life of her weak, dim husband. At the same time, he touts her vaunted personal charm, fashionable elegance, and supposed genuine affection for the man who surrendered his throne to marry her.

Unfortunately, the author's slapdash writing (replete with repetitive facts and anecdotes and endlessly laced with self-congratulatory details of his mostly unrevealing research) mean that "The Secret Life" doesn't even read well as mindless escapism. Higham's great revelations -- that the Duchess faked some details of her life as a military wife in China, and that the Windsors' contacts with various Fascist sympathizers were more substantial than they themselves were willing to reveal -- are hardly surprising in the context of a life devoted almost entirely to self-gratification and hedonistic consumption.

"The Secret Life" fails to convince the reader of anything except the almost overwhelming mediocrity of its subject, and by extension her hapless consort. Nothing fades faster than news of yesterday's parties; much the same is true of the once glittering and romantic legend of the Duchess of Windsor.