Princess Margaret: A Life Unravelled Hardcover - 2007

From the publisher

The almost universal conception is that the life of Princess Margaret (19302002) was a tragic failure, a history of unfulfilment. Tim Heald's vivid and elegant biography portrays a woman who was beautiful and sexually alluringeven more so than Princess Diana years laterand 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 lifeGroup Captain Peter Townsend. 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 receivedextraordinary help from those closest to Princess Margaret, including her family (Lord Snowdon and her son, Lord Linley), three of her private secretaries, and many of her ladies in waiting; as well asgaining 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 wheelchairbound figure, publicly reviled and ignored. This is a story of a life in which the private and the public seemed permanently in conflict."

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