Princess Margaret

By Tim Heald

Book Overview

Elegant and sophisticated biography of Princess Margaret, the controversial sister of Queen Elizabeth II, the Princess Diana of her day

The almost universal conception is that the life of Princess Margaret (1930-2002) was a tragic failure, a history of unfulfilment.

Tim Heald's vivid and elegant biography portrays a woman who was beautiful and sexually alluring - even more so than Princess Diana, years later - and whose reputation for naughtiness co-existed with the glamour. The mythology is that Margaret's life was 'ruined' by her not being allowed to marry the one true love of her life - Group Captain Peter Townsend - and that therefore her marriage to Lord Snowdon and her well-attested relationships with Roddy Llewellyn and others were mere consolation prizes. Margaret's often exotic personal life in places like Mustique is a key part of her story.

The author has had extraordinary help from those closest to Princess Margaret, including her family (Lord Snowdon and her son, Lord Linley), as well as three of her private secretaries and many of her ladies in waiting. These individuals have not talked to any previous biographer. He has also had the Queen's permission to use the royal archives.

Heald asks why one of the most famous and loved little girls in the world, who became a juvenile wartime sweetheart, ended her life a sad wheelchair-bound figure, publicly reviled and ignored. This is a story of a life in which the private and the public seemed permanently in conflict. The biography is packed with good stories. Princess Margaret was never ignored; what she said and did has been remembered and recounted to Tim Heald.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0753823772
• ISBN13: 9780753823774
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: Phoenix
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Thorough story of Princess Margaret

This is a thorough book about Princess Margaret's life. A life of struggles with moments of joy, just like most people's lives. This book shows that though she was royalty, life plagued her. She may not had to worry about many things that they average person did, but she still suffered. She found ways to cope and experience joy also. Good book.

An unsatisfied life

This is absolutely the very last book that I will ever read about Princess Margaret as I'm sure that I've read everything that could possibly been written about her and her life. What a poor, wretched,unhappy woman she was..spoilt dreadfully and therefore unable to feel any kind of satisfaction in her life. Idolized by her father as a child, she reacted with spoiled petulance to any form of discipline and managed to charm her way out of trouble with her mischievous sense of humour, but, always walking in her sister's shadow. Her truculent attitude towards what she considered was the correct way to speak to her, may have been accepted and expected, centuries before but even in the second half of the 20th century, total subservience to members of the royal family was a thing of the past and, only in her immediate circle of cronies, did she recieve the grovelling, self effacing behaviour that characterised her needs. Her self indulgent life style caused her to suffer from poor health and she ended her sad life as a lonely, sick woman...what a waste!.