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Portraits of a Princess: Travels with Diana [Hardcover]

Patrick Jephson (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)


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Book Description

October 21, 2004
The dramatic public life of Diana, Princess of Wales was enacted against a backdrop of exciting foreign destinations.

These are inextricably linked to some of the most significant events in her own journey. Who can forget the lonely Princess at the Taj Mahal, the "War of the Waleses" in South Korea, the glamorous Diana, darling of Manhattan fundraisers, or the Queen of Hearts in an African refugee camp? These are just some of the unforgettable images revisited in Portraits of a Princess--Travels with Diana.

Patrick Jephson, Diana's private secretary for many years, gives his unique perspective of his time spent with the Princess. As the man who organized nearly all of her foreign travel and accompanied her on most of it, his viewpoint provides the book with a unique sense of authority.

For Portraits of a Princess Jephson reassembles the core team that worked with him on orchestrating Diana's worldwide crusade: the press secretary, the security chief and the Princess's personal assistant.

From this unmatched archive of experience came candid and entertaining anecdotes which add colour to fascinating behind-the-scenes details of the logistics of a royal superstar on tour: how the press coverage was organized and orchestrated, how the protocol experts were kept happy and how transport and security requirements were adapted to suit Diana's revolutionary royal style.

Other experts comment on the Princess's changing fashion tastes as her wardrobe evolved from the "Shy Di" of the joint tours to the confident glamour icon of Washington society balls or the hands-on charity leader in Africa.

Again and again, as we retrace the Princess's footstep, Jephson asks, "Did she make a difference?"

These striking portraits answer that question.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The anniversary of Princess Diana’s death on August 31, 1997, serves as occasion for yet another tribute, this time exploring her travels. Jephson, Diana’s private secretary, was denounced by Prince William in 2000 for exploiting his connection to Diana and publishing Shadows of a Princess, a highly critical look at her character, but this book is considerably more flattering. "To omit mention of... her failings would be to dismiss her as a saccharin invention—but they were not the whole person," Jephson writes. "The Diana I knew overcame these traits every day she stepped out of her palace and used her talents to brighten the lives of others." According to Jephson, the book’s purpose is to remind readers of the "brilliance" of the work Diana did for so many good causes. Yet, while the images provided by Royal Photographer Gavin document Diana’s dealings with various world dignitaries and charity organizers, they also show the evolution of her hair and wardrobe. She was, as Jephson puts it, "an unbeatable combination of fashion and compassion." If short on gravitas and substance, Jephson nevertheless shows how Diana leveraged her celebrity status for the public good, drawing the eye of the world to such causes as AIDS, ballet companies and land mines. Though Jephson sometimes adopts a patronizing tone and intrusively inserts himself into his own narrative—describing how he disapproved of her occasional "scheming" and proclaiming that her appearance in the Panorama interview "sealed the fate of her royal career. And mine too"—Diana’s devotees will likely make room on their shelves for this memorial.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Few of us will ever look as beautiful on the outside as she did, but all of us can strive to develop that inner beauty of the heart and soul that she valued and understood was more lasting and important."
- Hillary Clinton

"She helped me to help the poor and that's the most beautiful thing."
- Mother Teresa

"She was undoubtedly one of the best ambassadors of Great Britain."
- Nelson Mandela

"Her iconic potency is infinitely strengthened by the fact that we shall never see her middle-aged or old...she will be eternally young...a great beauty and a great humanitarian rolled into one"
- Sir Roy Strong, The Times

"The power of her appeal was vulnerable fallibility."
- Simon Schama, The New Yorker

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First U.S. Edition edition (October 21, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312337825
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312337827
  • Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,515,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars I was disappointed with this book., December 5, 2004
By 
A. Burchfield (Conway, Missouri USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Portraits of a Princess: Travels with Diana (Hardcover)
Mr. Jephson's first book "Shadows of a Princess" was alternately praising of the Princess and then would tear her down so I was a bit wary of this book.
I think it takes a nicer tone about the Princess this time, describing trips she made to various countries (each with it's own chapter) with Jephson in tow. For your money I find that you'll be getting what amounts to a medium sized picture book with large print text. Kent Gavin's long introduction is actually the best, most informative part of the text, Jephson puts too much of himself in his writing. The pictures, well you've seen most of them before, they're still good anyway.
There are a couple of chapters at the end by other writers about traveling with Diana, also better than what Jephson himself wrote.
It isn't the worst book to own but I'd still prefer Rosalind Coward's book.
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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, January 18, 2005
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This review is from: Portraits of a Princess: Travels with Diana (Hardcover)
The book contains several inaccurate informations on dates and places - which is surprinsing for an author who was previously the princess's private secretary. The so called never-seen-before photos are almost none, especially if you are a serious Diana fan.
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A lovely way to remember her., December 17, 2004
By 
This review is from: Portraits of a Princess: Travels with Diana (Hardcover)
Diana, the Princess of Wales, is in the news again, with "new" videotaped interviews being shown on television seven years after her death in a car crash in a Paris tunnel. Although he isn't the one releasing the videotapes, Patrick Jephson, who served for six years as her first and only private secretary, has just released a new book, "Portraits of a Princess: Travels with Diana," in which he reveals fascinating behind-the-scenes details of what it was like to work for and travel with the princess. He combines his text with photos by award-winning royal photographer Kent Gavin.

The book includes 300 black and white or color photos of Diana, 150 of which were previously unpublished. There really are lots of photos here. The text is a sometimes emotional memoir written by someone who obviously admired her. The photos cover the range of her life in the public eye, from her first awkward experiments with fashion to her later, confident style, as she evolved "from Prince Charles's diffident consort into an independent, global force for good." The author shows Diana as "ambassador" to people all over the world, from monarchs and world leaders to the lowliest on the street and in hospitals. He describes her as "an unbeatable combination of fashion and compassion."
But Jephson had writing help: Kent Gavin wrote the foreword, titled "The View from Inside the Press Pen." There's a chapter called "Travels of a Royal Press Secretary" written by Dickie Arbiter. And there's another chapter on "Diana's Style" written by Ollie Picton-Jones, the fashion director for the Daily Mirror.

Jephson ends the book with an epilogue titled "Did She Make a Difference?" Obviously, he thinks she did. This is a lovely gift for those royal-watchers among us who still can't quite believe she's gone.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
All Diana's greatest strengths, all the elements that combined to create her royal star quality, were on clearest view when she was allowed to display them on her overseas tours. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
royal establishment, protection officer
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Royal Family, Hong Kong, New York, Kensington Palace, Princess of Wales, Foreign Office, Princess Diana, Red Cross, David Tang, White House, Bridgewater House, Buckingham Palace, Lynda Chalker, South Korea, Catherine Walker, Chris Patten, City Hall, John Latsis, Luciano Pavarotti, Prince Charles, Royal Navy, Royal Yacht Britannia, Saudi Arabia, The Hungarians, The Lady Maureen
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