Last of the Duchess - ComeLibros Club

No cover — Caroline Blackwood, Nicholas Wright: Last of the Duchess (2011, Hern Books, Limited, Nick)

80 pages

English language

Published 2011 by Hern Books, Limited, Nick.

ISBN:: 978-1-84842-206-3
OCLC Number:: 755978926

(1 review)

This is the fascinating and startling story of journalist and novelist Caroline Blackwood's search for the late Duchess of Windsor. In 1980, the London Sunday Times commissioned Lord Snowdon to photograph the Duchess, who was then living outside of Paris, and Blackwood was asked to go along to report. But it is Maitre Suzanne Blum, one of the most powerful lawyers in France, who becomes the central figure of Blackwood's story. Fierce and controlling, Blum holds the Duchess a virtual prisoner in her grand but now shuttered house in the Bois de Boulogne, keeping away all visitors. In Blum, Blackwood brings to life a wily old Gorgon -- alternately vulnerable and ruthless, paranoid and perverse -- who has begun interweaving her life with that of the Duchess. It is from Blackwood's talks with such colorful contemporaries of the Duchess as Lady Monckton, Lady Diana Cooper, and Lady Mosley and from …

This is the fascinating and startling story of journalist and novelist Caroline Blackwood's search for the late Duchess of Windsor. In 1980, the London Sunday Times commissioned Lord Snowdon to photograph the Duchess, who was then living outside of Paris, and Blackwood was asked to go along to report. But it is Maitre Suzanne Blum, one of the most powerful lawyers in France, who becomes the central figure of Blackwood's story. Fierce and controlling, Blum holds the Duchess a virtual prisoner in her grand but now shuttered house in the Bois de Boulogne, keeping away all visitors. In Blum, Blackwood brings to life a wily old Gorgon -- alternately vulnerable and ruthless, paranoid and perverse -- who has begun interweaving her life with that of the Duchess. It is from Blackwood's talks with such colorful contemporaries of the Duchess as Lady Monckton, Lady Diana Cooper, and Lady Mosley and from her own encounter with Maitre Blum that Blackwood is able to evoke brilliantly the life and exploits of Wallace Warfield Simpson Windsor as well as her bizarre and sinister relationship with Suzanne Blum. - Jacket flap.

8 editions

malglam reviewed The last of the Duchess by Caroline Blackwood

Review of 'The last of the Duchess' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

This book is pure gossip. The writer is assigned to find what is really happening to Wallis Simpson. She's been ill for a long time and nobody seems to know if she is alive or dead. She managed to speak to her lawyer and she didn't get a lot of information from her. So instead, she wrote this book explaining how awful the lawyer was. She also spoke with a lot of old ladies, most of them seniles, who knew the Duchess of Windsor to a greater or lesser extent. The results of these conversations and a lot of quotes of the biography written by J. Bryann compound the whole book. Read that instead.

Subjects

British and irish drama (dramatic works by one author)