- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Constable (22 Feb 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0094793204
- ISBN-13: 978-0094793200
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.7 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 881,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Behind every strong man stands a strong woman, the adage runs. It would perhaps be overly generous to label either Edward VIII or George VI a Hercules, but their respective wives were certainly clashing colossi, engaged in a titanic struggle that outlasted the Second World War, and which briefly threatened to alter its course dramatically. The story of the abdication crisis has been told and retold, but Kirsty McLeod's account cuts as striking a dash as one of Wallis's dresses (and at a fraction of the price).
McLeod's main contention is that the bullying criticism of their father (George V) and the icy haughtiness of their mother (Queen Mary) cruelly impaired the two brothers and ill equipped them for their future roles. The sado-masochistic relationship David (as Edward VIII was known) entered into with Wallis provided a closure for the "black, black mist" which was his inheritance, along with the throne, from his father. His crime was to put his lover before his country--romantic to a people who warmed to his common touch, heinous to a family that put monarchic duty before, well, anything. In incurring the wrath of Elizabeth, the present Queen Mother, for forcing her husband Bertie to become George VI, he effectively sealed the fate of himself and his new wife to drift the world as "personae non grata". The loyal Bertie had continued to doggedly support his older brother until he lied to him about his finances when negotiating the abdication "pay-off"; the subsequent estrangement probably owed more to unacknowledged sibling rivalry and shared stubbornness as the potential for tragedy dissipated into pettiness. McLeod's conjectures are sometimes provocative but always interesting and the verve she brings to her subject defies any weariness it may provoke. It may be a familiarly familial tale, but a good story can stand a decent retelling. --David Vincent
Product Description
David and Bertie - later King Edward VIII an d King George VI were left emotionally scarred by their ice- cold mother Queen Mary and domineering father George V, and their brotherly love was destroyed in the vicious feud betwe en Wallis and Elizabeth. '
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
An excellent book giving the reasons behind the feud between the Queen Mother and Wallis simpson
Format:Hardcover
This book gives a good insight into the early lives of the royal brothers which spills over into their adult life.It is written with no bias to either brother.
Written and researched well.
Written and researched well.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Unlike a lot of biographies of Edward VIII and George VI, this is very readable. The political aspects of the times are mentioned but not in a rambling and boring sort of way. The comparison of the lives of the two brothers in one book is a plus, especially if the reader prefers this to reading separate biographies.
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