A King's Story: The Memoirs of H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor K.G. (Lost Treasures Series) [Paperback]

Edward Windsor (Author), Duke of Windsor (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lost Treasures Series | Publication Date: March 1999

Written in 1951, this is the autobiography of the late Duke of Windsor - great grandson of Queen Victoria, grandson of Edward VII, son of George V, and cousin of the German Emperor and the Czar of Russia. The book tells the story of the future king's early youth at Sandringham, his years at Naval School on the Isle of Wight, at Magdalen College, Oxford, in the army in World War I, and his tours of Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Eventually he becomes king, on the death of his father. He defies the wishes of Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, when he insists on marrying Wallis Simpson, the future Duchess of Windsor. The book features his abdication, and his marriage.

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Prion Books (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853753033
• ISBN-13: 978-1853753039
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #965,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating historical document and surprisingly good read, April 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A King's Story: The Memoirs of H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor K.G. (Lost Treasures Series) (Paperback)

The Duke of Windsor wrote this book in the 1950s while living in Paris. Reading it you begin to get some sense that for all his faults here was an individual of extraordinary personal charm. It was certainly a singular life. Here was a boy who was led to believe he would inherit the throne of the greatest empire on earth but who ends up as a sad fixture on the international cocktail party circuit in the arms of an ageing American divorcee of uncertain past. What happened! The anecdotal style of this simply written book is very enjoyable to read. The passing of the certainties of the Victorian age, the Edwardian twilight, World War I, the thrill of all things new and American in the 20s and 30s: the would be Edward VIII is a uniquely placed witness. History increasingly casts the Duke and his bride as ridiculous even sinister figures. This book helps you to remember that they were human too, falliable, and at the mercy of political and world historical forces beyond their control.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and revealing, July 9, 2007

By 

mg1900 - See all my reviews

This review is from: A King's Story: The Memoirs of H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor K.G. (Lost Treasures Series) (Paperback)

This is a very good story, and well told, even if ghost written.

Oddly, it casts the Duke of Windsor in a poor light, and indicates why, quite apart from the marriage question, he was a bad King. Who can read without wincing his account of how he abruptly cut short the presentations of debutantes to him at Buckingham Palace because it started to rain? This was the high point of perfectly harmless society ladies' lives, and he not only walked out in the middle, but caustically observes that he cannot understand why anyone was upset.

And then there is the peculiar passage where he says that he worked out that it would take nearly a month for bodies like the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and others, to present their loyal addresses, so he insisted on them all being done in one day, in one batch, because he could not be bothered to respond to all of them individually. Yet this was his job as a constitutional monarch!

A welcome feature of the book is that it stops at the moment of abdication. Although this means that he doesn't have to explain his conduct during the lead up to the war, and during the war (which is, however, documented in the Duchess of Windsor's memoirs), it does focus the book almost entirely on his upbringing as a Prince, and on the abdication, which are the most interesting things about him.

Well worth reading.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A King's Story, December 19, 2002

By 

Shirley M. Corley (Ames, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A King's Story: The Memoirs of H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor K.G. (Lost Treasures Series) (Paperback)

The greatest love story of our century is an understatement.
A King's Story is well known to be ghost written for the Duke and even with constant prodding, he suffered from selective memory.
He seems to forget all his previous "friendships", those familiar with the saga will know this means the married women in his life before Wallis. A great addition to royal book collection, but if you are looking for the facts, hunt them down in Donaldson book. Companion book is the Duchess Heart has it's reasons. Maybe they should have gotten together so the facts in each book matched.