Traitor King
Andrew Lownie
12 May 2022
9781788704878432 pages
Synopsis
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
UPDATED PAPERBACK FEATURING NEW CONTENT
A Daily Mail Royal Book of the Year, 2021
A Spectator Book of the Year, 2021
'Briskly written and compulsively readable' - A.N. Wilson, TLS
'Meticulously researched' - Spectator
'Entertaining, convincing, timely' - Evening Standard
December 1936. The King of England, Edward VIII, has given up his Crown, foregoing his duty for the love of Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée. Their courtship has been dogged by controversy and scandal, but with Edward's abdication, they can live happily ever after. But do they?
In Traitor King, bestselling historian Andrew Lownie draws on hitherto unexplored archives to uncover the dramatic world of the Windsors post-abdication. Lownie reveals a couple obsessed with their status, financially exploiting their position and manipulating the media. Filled with treachery and betrayal, this is a story of an exiled Royal and the Nazi attempts to recruit him to their cause. And of why the Royal family never forgave the Duke for choosing love over duty.
UPDATED PAPERBACK FEATURING NEW CONTENT
A Daily Mail Royal Book of the Year, 2021
A Spectator Book of the Year, 2021
'Briskly written and compulsively readable' - A.N. Wilson, TLS
'Meticulously researched' - Spectator
'Entertaining, convincing, timely' - Evening Standard
December 1936. The King of England, Edward VIII, has given up his Crown, foregoing his duty for the love of Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée. Their courtship has been dogged by controversy and scandal, but with Edward's abdication, they can live happily ever after. But do they?
In Traitor King, bestselling historian Andrew Lownie draws on hitherto unexplored archives to uncover the dramatic world of the Windsors post-abdication. Lownie reveals a couple obsessed with their status, financially exploiting their position and manipulating the media. Filled with treachery and betrayal, this is a story of an exiled Royal and the Nazi attempts to recruit him to their cause. And of why the Royal family never forgave the Duke for choosing love over duty.
Meticulously researchedSpectator
Lownie expertly captures the extravagance (they never travelled with fewer than 73 pieces of luggage), the sense of entitlement, the snobbery, the vanity, the selfpity, the bone-idle laziness, the fundamental uselessness of their lives as outcasts. 'I never saw a man so bored,' said one acquaintance. Should this be required reading in a certain household in Montecito, California?Daily Mail History Books of the Year
Briskly written and compulsively readable...Does Andrew Lownie persuade me that it is worth telling the story again, and that he has made out the case for his unforgiving title? The answer is an unambiguous yes.A.N. Wilson, TLS
