Last of the Duchess [Paperback]

Caroline Blackwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1995

Intriguing, suspenseful, and witty, this is the story of journalist and novelist Caroline Blackwood's search for the late Duchess of Windsor. It is also a provocative exploration of the often bizarre connection between heightened celebrity and approaching death--in Blackwood's words, "the fatal effects of myth." First serial to New York Times Magazine.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist and journalist Blackwood has pulled off quite a coup here: she has written a biographical portrait of the late Wallis Simpson, duchess of Windsor, without ever having seen more of her than the outside of her magnificent house near Paris and a murky photograph taken through the window by an Italian paparazzo. In 1980, the Sunday Times of London sent Blackwood to interview the 84-year-old duchess for a piece to run with photographs by Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret's husband. The assignment was dynamite, but the pair are stopped dead by Suzanne Blum, an 83-year-old eccentric and vitriolic French lawyer known as Maitre Bloom, who identifies so closely with the duchess that her life is a round of suing newspapers, perpetrating both lies and legends of her charge's beauty and good health. Maitre Bloom firmly takes over this book. A few derivative chapters cover the well-known details of Wallis Simpson's early life, but Maitre Bloom shapes every page with her tantrums and vanities. The portrait is interesting psychologically and one admires this poised effort to salvage an aborted assignment. However, the absence of denouement-neither Blackwood nor Lord Snowden make it past the ferocious protector-makes the reader wonder why she is paying this much attention to a little-known, if complex, eccentric. In the end, one can only feel sorry for both the obsessed and the object of her obsession.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In 1980 when the London Sunday Times commissioned Lord Snowden to photograph the 84-year-old Duchess of Windsor, then living outside of Paris, Blackwood was asked to accompany him as a reporter. Alas, this journalistic scoop was not to be, for blocking all access to the duchess was her lawyer, the fierce and formidable Suzanne Blum. Interviewing such contemporaries of Wallis Simpson as Lady Mosley and Lady Diana Cooper, Blackwood discovered that the octogenarian Maitre Blum, one of France's most powerful attorneys, had complete control over the duchess and her estate. Since Blum kept the ailing duchess isolated in her shuttered mansion, Blackwood could not verify whether Wallis had fallen into a coma, as rumored by her friends, or whether she was still as beautiful and witty as ever, as Blum maintained. And that is this book's problem; offering inconclusive speculations, it reads like the extended Vanity Fair article it should have been. For larger collections.
-?Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Akadine Press (1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158579001X
• ISBN-13: 978-1585790012
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,310,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Little known last act to famous life, April 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Last of the Duchess, The (Hardcover)

The long coda to the life of one of the twentieth century's most famous (infamous?) figures was played out in a French villa in an atmosphere of secrecy and intrigue that was at times bizarre. This book is extremely sharply written and is a reminder that the gothic mode is not the exclusive preseve of either fiction or the nineteenth century.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you are intrigued by Wallis, read this!, April 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Last of the Duchess, The (Hardcover)

This was a truly bizarre, and sad, story of the final days of this larger-than-life woman. Maitre Blum was a woman obsessed by, and in love with, the Duchess. The amount of control M. Blum held, and the ferocity with which she held on to it are truly scary forces to see. As a follow-up to the death of the Duchess, read the essay in Dominick Dunne's collection about the disposition of her estate by the hand of M. Blum.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's a mystery! No, a biography! It's both and it's good., May 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Last of the Duchess, The (Hardcover)

This book is a mystery novel, journalist's feature story and biography all in one. Telling the story through the author's attempts to uncover the truth surrounding Wallis' life after the death of the Duke keeps the suspense-level high. It grabbed my interest and held it to the end. If you are at all interested in the Windsors' story, this book completes the story of Wallis' life and gives a few more details about their lives that previous books have not.