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'Wallis was a gold-digger or prospector of the evening, who never used a fossicking dish or pick to pan her pay dirt.' (written at the time of the Abdication by a contemporary of Wallis from her home town of Baltimore, as recorded in MEPO/10/35 file 17098 in the Public Records Office.) The Public Records Office recently released certain confidential files relating to the Abdication from the Throne in 1936 of King Edward VIII, formerly The Prince of Wales and then to become The Duke of Windsor, which had been withheld pending the death of the late Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth. Among them were documents which appear to be diaries kept during the period by Mrs. Wallis Simpson, later The Duchess Of Windsor. Expertly edited by Helen Batting, this diary for 1934 provides a brilliantly revelatory insight into the thoughts and lifestyle of a woman who was accused of 'setting out to steal the Throne of England'. It is a fascinating glimpse at one of the most significant years in the history of the British Royal Family. Helen Batting is the nom-de-plume of a distinguished British-born historian, novelist, travel writer and freelance journalist. She should not, of course, be confused with the author of "Bridget Jones' Diary", Helen Fielding. Similar editions are now being prepared of the diaries for the years 1935 and 1936, taking them up to the month of the Abdication itself.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a hoot! At first I took it as a straight read, until I got to a cutting from the Daily
Mail headed `Hunting Girl Throws Prince' and describing how Edward was bowled over
by a young Millie Boulter [geddit?] before the hunt went on to kill a cat belonging to
villager Andrew Parker [i.e., -Bowles], and it all clicked.
After that my sides just split wider and wider, and when Wallis, on introducing herself
to Queen Mary and dropping that she was an ex of Capt. Spencer, got the reply `Good
gracious, you sound like a walking stores directory. I suppose you'll be marrying a
Mister Marks next.', I really did come apart.
If you want a read to lift you out of the blues, this has to be the one to go for - but
don't expect Madonna to be amused!
Mail headed `Hunting Girl Throws Prince' and describing how Edward was bowled over
by a young Millie Boulter [geddit?] before the hunt went on to kill a cat belonging to
villager Andrew Parker [i.e., -Bowles], and it all clicked.
After that my sides just split wider and wider, and when Wallis, on introducing herself
to Queen Mary and dropping that she was an ex of Capt. Spencer, got the reply `Good
gracious, you sound like a walking stores directory. I suppose you'll be marrying a
Mister Marks next.', I really did come apart.
If you want a read to lift you out of the blues, this has to be the one to go for - but
don't expect Madonna to be amused!
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The recent book, "Wallis Simpson's Diary," is one of the worst efforts at fiction I have come across in recent years. It masquerades as an authentic diary, and to find out it really is a novel by Helen Batting (who on the cover is listed as its editor) you have to search for the copyright page: only there is it stated that this is a work of fiction. The back cover gives blurbs for apparently factual "diaries" of subsequent years to appear soon (more to our misfortune).
This first volume deals fictionally with the year 1934. I only need to quote the first sentence of the book to alert the reader what he/she is in for: "Finances: Simpson, Spence & Whoever still heading for the bow-wows according to Ernest, and his tight-wad Pop is even trying to talk him into putting some of his own cash into it --fat chance, if he saw the state of our books." The remainder of the book is just as embarrassingly bad, making it virtually unreadable. Wallis Simpson's Americanisms of speech are overdone to the point of caricature.
Musing on the spate of books coming out about the Duchess of Windsor, I would make the observation that the battle of the adversaries --the Duchess of Windsor and the Queen Mother, an admirable figure in many ways -- seems to have resulted, after the death of both, in a slight victory for Wallis. There are at least two or three books a year coming out about her; she was, after all, an intriguing, charismatic (in many ways) woman, with her own faults too; while only an occasional book or two appears on the Queen Mother, although I suppose we can expect an authorized biography in a year or two.
I will hurt many honorable and loyalist Britons by saying this: the fascination with the Duchess of Windsor is more likely to endure the vicissitudes of time than that of her rival.This is not intended to denigrate the courage of the Queen Mother during World War II and her many other virtues. And after so many recent divorces and scandals in the Royal House of Windsor, they can no longer use the canard of Wallis Simpson being a twice divorced American adventuress to exalt the purity of their own royal scions.
This first volume deals fictionally with the year 1934. I only need to quote the first sentence of the book to alert the reader what he/she is in for: "Finances: Simpson, Spence & Whoever still heading for the bow-wows according to Ernest, and his tight-wad Pop is even trying to talk him into putting some of his own cash into it --fat chance, if he saw the state of our books." The remainder of the book is just as embarrassingly bad, making it virtually unreadable. Wallis Simpson's Americanisms of speech are overdone to the point of caricature.
Musing on the spate of books coming out about the Duchess of Windsor, I would make the observation that the battle of the adversaries --the Duchess of Windsor and the Queen Mother, an admirable figure in many ways -- seems to have resulted, after the death of both, in a slight victory for Wallis. There are at least two or three books a year coming out about her; she was, after all, an intriguing, charismatic (in many ways) woman, with her own faults too; while only an occasional book or two appears on the Queen Mother, although I suppose we can expect an authorized biography in a year or two.
I will hurt many honorable and loyalist Britons by saying this: the fascination with the Duchess of Windsor is more likely to endure the vicissitudes of time than that of her rival.This is not intended to denigrate the courage of the Queen Mother during World War II and her many other virtues. And after so many recent divorces and scandals in the Royal House of Windsor, they can no longer use the canard of Wallis Simpson being a twice divorced American adventuress to exalt the purity of their own royal scions.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book purports to be a 1934 diary kept by Wallis Simpson (later Duchess of Windsor), then resident in England. The publisher's back cover blurb posted on the Amazon.co site gives no indication that this book is, in fact, a work of fiction.
For that, one must ferret out the information on the copyright page, where it is stated: "This book is a work of fiction. All
names and persons are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously within the historical context of the year 1934...."
Marguerite Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian" prove that a writer of high merit can create a fictional masterpiece out of a supposedly historical diary. But "Wallis Simpson's Diary" does not reach anywhere close to that level. It is banal, full of American slang vocabulary(legitimately, but not to the excess done here) and poorly written. I am quite sure that Wallis Simpson herself, reasonably well educated, could have penned a much more readable diary. In an interview of 1956, prior to the publication of her memoirs "The Heart Has Its Reasons," the Duchess of Windsor stated: "I don't want people referring back to inaccuracies after I am dead" Author Helen Batting would have done well to have taken those words to heart. Let us hope that the promised sequels for 1935 and 1936 never see the light of day.
For that, one must ferret out the information on the copyright page, where it is stated: "This book is a work of fiction. All
names and persons are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously within the historical context of the year 1934...."
Marguerite Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian" prove that a writer of high merit can create a fictional masterpiece out of a supposedly historical diary. But "Wallis Simpson's Diary" does not reach anywhere close to that level. It is banal, full of American slang vocabulary(legitimately, but not to the excess done here) and poorly written. I am quite sure that Wallis Simpson herself, reasonably well educated, could have penned a much more readable diary. In an interview of 1956, prior to the publication of her memoirs "The Heart Has Its Reasons," the Duchess of Windsor stated: "I don't want people referring back to inaccuracies after I am dead" Author Helen Batting would have done well to have taken those words to heart. Let us hope that the promised sequels for 1935 and 1936 never see the light of day.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
More Batting less Fielding
This fictionalised journal plunges the reader into the arcane and at times downright bizarre mind of American socialite Wallis Simpson, through her courtship and final conquest of... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Argodane
Not to be taken at face value...
This is not just a novel, but a satire - and an uproarious one at that - which seems to have passed clean over the head of the previous reviewer. Read more
Published 7 months ago by bowledover
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