That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, duch*ess of Wind… (2024)

OMG! Was the editor drugged or just sleeping on the job. This has got to be the most boring biography I have ever read. It reminds me of getting stuck in a corner with a person at a party who keeps digressing from one boring story to the next and never making any point but just rambling on.

Worse, the author makes wild suppositions about Wallis' possible DSD or hermaphroditism while making it clear that there has never been any proof of either. She goes on to explain that "IF" these suppositions were true, then it would explain her behavior in regard to x, y, & z. Similarly, she claims that there were stories about Wallis' alleged sexual prowess leaned from prostitutes in China. And , again, "IF" that were true, then that explains x,y, & z. I am not above cheap juicy gossip. But when it is as vague and unfounded as presented here, one might as well add: " Well, if the King were actually a toad and Wallis' kiss turned him into a King, then no wonder he was enchanted with her."

I must grudgingly admit that I enjoyed seeing the former HRH being treated badly by his family and England. He had the royal temerity to keep attempting to negotiate for favors after he abdicated. Sort of like: I am quitting my job, but I still want full salary and I want you to call me Boss and my wife must always be addressed as Mrs. Boss. Good luck with that. What's really boring is the thought that for years his abdication speech was viewed as a tragical romance story. Also unpleasant were the pictures of the Duke & duch*ess socializing with Hitler. Grrrrrrrrr.

3.5 stars

Before there was Harry and Meghan, there was Wallis and Edward. This was a fascinating account of the King who gave up his throne for the woman he loved. Wallis is depicted as a go-getter who will stop at nothing to gain wealth and security, but be careful what you wish for. As the couple descends into old age and relative obscurity, it's actually kind of sad.

I did knock off some stars for medical claims which didn't seem to have a lot of research behind them. Overall, it's a worthwhile read that reiterates that drama is nothing new for the Royals.

Possibly the worst purported biography written about the duch*ess of Windsor. It seems to have been written solely as an excuse for the author to beguile readers with groundless and unproven speculation that the duch*ess MAY have suffered from DSD (Disorder of Sexual Development), MAY have been an hermaphrodite (or semi-hermaphrodite), APPEARED to be masculine and had very large hands and, now hold your breath here, a diarist of the day actually wrote that she looked masculine. In that case, we'd better have a long second and third look at many of today's women athletes who don't look cute, cuddly and baby-faced. Finally, after leading readers down this long path to nowhere, the author, on page 277, comes clean, writing that after the duch*ess' death "there was no autopsy". Nothing like finally admitting that this has been pure speculation and innuendo designed only to sell books using a completely faulty and unprovable premise. And if we're going to talk about unfounded speculation and innuendo, let's not forget the author's theory that the duch*ess learned some really nifty sexual techniques while living in China/Shanghai - or maybe she didn't because this is culled from speculation by others
With equal disregard for proof and evidence of any kind, the author then moves on to declare the former King Edward VIII was "autistic" or "mad". No conclusive proof, particularly since autism wasn't even diagnosed in the 1930s, but one should never let facts and proof get in the way of a really good theory, should one?
As for the rest of the "biography" - it's rather poorly written, has a breathless gossipy tone to it and flounders part way through when it appears that the author lost interest after having presented the DSD/hermaphrodite/autism theories. Once she finished detailing the wedding, she needed only 70 pages to offer up the rest of the Duke and duch*ess' long lives - an uncritical glossing over of their Nazi connections, their scandal-riddled war years, their lives after the war, even skimming over the whole Jimmy Donahue episode. That, in particular, was so poorly written and presented that uninformed readers could be left wondering why that story was included at all. Yet it revealed so much about both Windsors.
There's a great biography about the duch*ess of Windsor out there somewhere - but this isn't it.

Completely meretricious, and I mean completely. She does nothing at all with the new material, Wallis' continuing correspondence with Ernest Simpson until his death, and the reader is forced to endure what can only be described as the cesspool of the author's mind. The duch*ess of Windsor wasn't the nicest woman in the world, but I have read biographies of Hitler that displayed more empathy for their subject. Sebba would undoubtedly claim that she is trying to understand the woman, but when you devote lugubrious pages to the idea that Mrs. Simpson may have been a hermaphrodite with the skillset of a Chinese hooker --- no proof, mind you ---- well, there is something weirder than biography afoot. Since she starts the book with an irrelevant self-tribute to her own avoidance of a noble sugar daddy at the very Schloss Enzesfeld that hosted the Duke after the abdication (with the implication being that Wallis should have tried harder? I have no idea), it's as though she thinks condescension is the way to handle her subject. I am now off to bathe in Lysol.

Wallis Simpson was guilty of four things: she was a woman, she was a commoner, she was a double-divorcee and she was an American. But, notwithstanding all these handicaps, she still managed to storm the House of Windsor. She shook the fusty old English establishment and she got her man, even when the man happened to be a king! The surprise here is even greater because there was something manly about this femme fatale.

I’ll come to this in a bit but first a word or two about a wholly compelling individual, a social climber, a sort of American Becky Sharp, the unscrupulous character from William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair, one who climbed high enough to catch the affections of the heir to the throne

In 1936 Edward VIII, who recently succeeded his father George V, made it plain to the English establishment, politicians and churchmen alike, that he intended to marry this double divorcee, his long-standing mistress, an unprecedented move. Oh, no, you are not, came the response, not if you want to remain as king. Oh, yes, I am, and I don't want to be king. Wallis and love came before throne and duty. Edward abdicated and, as Duke of Windsor, married his duch*ess.

They were such an odd couple, the handsome and debonair prince and the gauche, angular and rather masculine Wallis. Look at her picture. She’s not just conventionally plain; she’s positively ugly. But what she lacked in looks she made up for in wit and personality. She also made up for it with other talents, at least according to long-standing rumours, talents acquired in some of the less salubrious fleshpots of old Shanghai.

It’s a subject taken up by Anne Sebba in THAT WOMAN: The Life of Wallis Simpson duch*ess of Windsor. Among other things the author touches on, ahem, Wallis’ carnal expertise, including a speciality in oral sex, “which would not have been standard education for most British or American girls of the day.” No, it would not.

But there is, she goes on to say, a far deeper and darker secret, something that would account for her appearance and her personality. The suggestion is that she might have suffered from a condition now referred to as Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD) or intersexuality, something that apparently affects 4000 babies each year in the United Kingdom alone. I can only describe this as nature not making up its mind, producing a child that is not quite one thing and not quite the other.

Accepting this argument - and I have to say there is a more than usually high level of speculation here - , Wallis was born a girl but with the male XY chromosome. Over time, as a baby with this condition develops, the build up of testosterone in the system produces physical characteristics more associated with males.

It’s also possible, the author further suggests, that Wallis was born as a pseudo-hermaphrodite, with the internal reproductive organs of one sex and the external organs of another. This is a matter incapable of any proof but apparently, and amazingly, although she was married twice before she met Edward she once told a friend that she had never had sexual intercourse with either of her husbands, refusing to allow anyone to touch her below what she referred to as her “personal Mason-Dixon line.”

Writing in 1958 the biographer James Pope-Hennessy said that she was one of the very oddest women that he had ever seen – “She is flat and angular and could have been designed for a medieval playing card. I should be tempted to classify her as an American woman par excellence were it not for the suspicion that she is not a woman at all.”

The whole thing is quite intriguing and I confess I am intrigued. But I’m also cautious, wary when people overuse expressions like ‘might have’, ‘would have’, ‘could have’ and so on. Sebba's’ thesis is fascinating but it relies overmuch on speculation and surmise rather than evidence. It can never be proved conclusively. The truth might be much simpler: that Wallis was just an ugly woman with charm enough to win a prince, that and the Shanghai technique.

She’s quite the fashion at the moment, dear Wallis, first a biography and now a movie. I’m so looking forward to seeing W. E., the new biopic directed by Madonna (that’s reason enough for going to see it!), scheduled for release here in January. The advance signs are not good, but – who cares? – I’m such a sucker for this sort of thing, with an almost endless capacity to suspend certain forms of disbelief.

Wallis Simpson - right woman, right place, right time?

Perhaps.

This highly readable and informative biography of Wallis Simpson by Anne Sebba suggests that had "That Woman" not come along and swept Edward, Prince of Wales of his feet Britain and its Empire may have ended up with a king who was unfit, uninterested and unable to fill the position that his brother so ably did.

Edward before he met Wallis was a royal with a film star following who connected with the people. He was also a playboy with experience and interests in women (married and single) and a disliking for the old guard or establishment. He was childlike in his behaviour: often selfish, petulant and unthinking; and thought by some who served him or other royals as mad with some brain cells not having developed.

It was Edward who pursued Wallis although she did very little to rebuff him or the lifestyle that his acquantaince and then friendship (love) offered.

Wallis was a strong but also terribly insecure character who managed to charm and horrify people in equal measure; and as 1936 came and passed with its events leading to abdication and in effect banishment for the couple, the numbers who were outraged, shocked or offended by her being a twice married woman whose behaviour had seen their king relinquish the crown grew.

She was vilified by public and royals alike and not bowing to opinion or doing little to hide away. She was direct and often said to be rude - although to this reader some of this is the British upper class not connecting with a souther American independent woman's humour, that today would I suspect be far less controversial.

Wallis was savvy with an eye for PR, but with no advisors or perhaps wrog appoinments and friendships she and the Duke made dreadful errors of judgement. She did have the sense to rein in the Duke in his encounters with Government, royalty and their staff. But this too was lost as Edward argued about money, position and especially title for Wallis, stating that as Duke and duch*ess of Windsor, she, Wallis , should be addressed as HRH - this was never allowed and rankled with them both to their graves. This stance for many before, during and shortly after the war with rationing and austerity abounding rang of nothing but me, me and me. In this the couple even upset their ally Winston Churchill by their behaviour and the Duke's harping on in lengthy letters.

Relations with the Royal family never thawed especially with Queen Mary and Elizabeth, The Queen Mother; and it is interesting to see the rtole played by Lord Louis Mountbatten after the Duke's death too.

Wallis' second husband Ernest Simpson comes out of the story well, and one wonders how this guardsman felt and thought for much of his married and then later life - Wallis continued to write to him even after divorce.

At times I wanted to like Wallis as she showed kindness, humour and understanding but I also know I would have found her exasperating, cruel, self-centred and intransigent.

Having read books on George V, Queen Mary, George VI, Elizabeth the Queen Mother and prime minister Stanley Baldwin plus others this book both confirms and adds new information to the abdication period and the two main characters Wallis Simpson and Edward Windsor.

Wallis Simpson may not have been an ideal or even remotely suitable queen of England, but by sweeping Edward of his feet "That Woman" did ensure Britain lost an unsuitable man who could have damaged his country irreparably, and by chance of birth saw a shy man with a stutter become not just king (George VI) but one of its finest monarchs, and with his family stood strong in World War II, and through succession has provided a devoted and long reigning queen to this day.

I've always been interested to know more behind the story of Edward and Wallis. I heard on a podcast that Anne Sebba had access to some letters that were previously unreleased so I chose her book for my education.

The first third of the book focuses on Wallis' childhood and live before Edward. This section was all new information for me and I found it well paced and entertaining. Wallis' mother had many struggles which helped to shape Wallis' feelings towards money and security. However, Sebba makes some claims about Wallis having a Disorder of Sexual Development (with a theory that Wallis could be a semi-hermaphrodite) that seemed wildly unsubstantiated. Her theory was based on the tiniest supposition but she follows it throughout the book to say "If she did have DSD then that would explain this..." While I suppose this theory is certainly possible, there was so little evidence to back it up that every time it was raised I felt that she was cheapening her position.

Anyway, I ignored those bits and moved on to the introduction of Edward. It's impossible not to get sucked into the story of this boy/man who never wanted to be king, struggling with his destiny. After reading about his early statements about not wanting the position I had to wonder if he would have latched on to any excuse to abdicate and Wallis seemed as good as any. But Sebba's book definitely paints a picture of a man obsessed. And her letters to her ex-husband, Ernest Simpson, show that she did not share Edward's obsession but chose her path with some regret. But once they have chosen their paths, Sebba's story starts to falter. This becomes the most laborious section of the book - Sebba drags Edward's abdication and aftermath on until I was sick of them both and wanted to cheer when his family snubs them. Go to the Bahamas and be quiet!!

Clearly Sebba dragged this on because that was all she had - the book ends rather suddenly with their deaths and not a lot of information about the last 20 years of Edward's life.

So was this the right pick for my WE education? Probably not but I was glad to read a book that didn't romanticize or turn them into victims. They are two imperfect people who made decisions that may not have made for a great life, but makes for a good story.

Normally, you'd write a new biography of somebody whose life has already been extensively scutinised by various predecessors when new material becomes avialable, or your own research has unearthed something hitherto unknown.
That's definitely not the case in this current biography of Wallis Simpson by Anne Sebba.She trundles her way through Wallis's life, without any psychological insight, new research or having talked to contemporaries.
She comes up with two startling opinions of her own, however. A) That Wallis Simpson was "most likely a hermaphrodite". Based on nothing, apart from a catty sideways remark by a gay diarist ("...if indeed she is a woman".) And B) that the Prince of Wales was most likely suffering from autism. Based on nothing at all, but apparently he didn't take enough notice of other people's feelings and was sometimes tactless.
These two "insights" really can't be commented upon, they are too unfounded and highly speculative - and also rather ridiculous, in my opinion.
Remains to be said that the structure of the book is slightly uneven. Masses of chapters are devoted to Wallis's childhood and youth (not terribly fascinating, I have to admit) whereas the actual marriage and the difficulty of carving out a meaningful existence gets a once-over without care or attention to detail. Before you actually know it, the Duke is dead, and then, 10 pages or so later, so is our heroine.
I cannot recommend this book as it doesn't add anything new of interest and isn't particularly well written.

I ignored the customer reviews and bought the book because although I was aware of Wallis Simpson, I didn’t know that much about her and thought her story would be interesting.

I only made it through a bit over half of the book before I gave up. I couldn’t read another sentence! The book suffers from poor editing, but even with a good editor I don’t know how you could turn Sebba’s self-indulgent writing into anything other than overly wordy conjectures. I kept losing my place, getting confused between characters, and too often had to read the same sentence over due to double negatives or just plain bad writing.

Other reviewers have noted her speculations about Wallis having SDS or sexual development disorder. Sebba has absolutely no proof, refers to it more than once, and perhaps pulled it out of thin air in an effort to make Wallis’s story more salacious in order to sell books.

Very conjectural, especially when constantly returning to (never proven, only rumoured/ suspected) supposed medical issues of the main subjects. I tried reading this for the parties, but couldn't.

The story of Wallis Simpson and her relationship with Edward, the king who gave up his throne to marry her, continues to fascinate, 75 years after they were married. The author gives us the facts and the speculation, being careful to distinguish between them. Even after looking at all the documentation, including some new material, Sebba admits no one can "explain the inexplicable:" how a middle-aged woman who was not beautiful and who repeatedly humiliated Edward in front of their friends, was so compelling to him that he could not imagine life without her. Wallis, who still cared for her husband at the time, never expected the affair with the king to lead to marriage, and when it headed in that direction, tried to end it. He threatened suicide, so she went ahead with a very public and stressful divorce, becoming a target of vicious hatred. When they married in 1937 in France, only seven British subjects attended, none of them members of the royal family.

Edward had symptoms that Sebba labels autistic, and even casual acquaintances commented on his immaturity, insensitivity, lack of a sense of duty and responsibility. I suspect he didn't really want to be king, so abdicating may not have been the great sacrifice it appeared to be. Still, though, he and Wallis remained excluded from the royal family, exiled to the end of their lives, lonely, denied any meaningful service to the Crown. She did get the wealth she craved, but it was never secure, and came at a higher price than she ever expected to pay.

Frankly, I was disappointed by this biography. If you have never read about Wallis Simpson before, this book may make a good-enough introduction. I've read about her all my life, though, and this book had no new information as well as a great deal of conjecture about hermaphrodism, substance abuse, and other un-verifiable claims the hungry press made about her during and after her life.

This bio had very odd pacing. About right for early years, then nearly half the book dealt with a sliver of time during which she met Prince of Wales and awaited her divorce. He dies abruptly after the last block of photos-- we didn't even know he'd been sick until our author suddenly dispensed with him. The book speeds up after their marriage and we go through decades in a whirlwind. It's as though the author was primarily concerned with the abdication and dismissive otherwise.

If you want to read a sympathetic biography from someone who was there, knew her and all the key players, and was a far better (and more entertaining) writer, find Diana Mosley's book about the duch*ess. Diana was one of the Mitford sisters with their gift for words, and as another exiled woman, knew her subject well as a friend and as a lifestyle. I'm off to re-read my copy.

Very readable bio of Wallis Simpson and the first written by a woman. Whilst sympathetic, it's pretty much a warts and all look at the woman, her life and the impossible situation she found herself in.

The one thing that did strike me while reading this was how much hasn't changed over the years. The public's' general attitude and response to the women royal men choose as consorts either out of love or duty has remained pretty much the same. Earl's daughters are good (especially if they produce a couple of cute kids) while the others are seen as vulgar & common ("no more royal than we are") or grasping & scheming or spend thrifts & lazy or adulterers who have some unnatural hold over the men. Or in some cases, all of the above! Saddest of all, it's still the women who are mainly vilified not the men who often create the impossible situations the women find themselves in.

Mediocre book about a pair of vain, snobby people. The best thing that happened to England and the Commonwealth is that Edward left the throne for "the woman he loved". He would have made a lousy king. For that, we should be grateful to Wallis...otherwise, she is best forgotten.

3.5 stars rounded up. I wanted to read about Wallis, searched around for a book I thought might scratch the itch, selected this one, and it certainly did scratch that itch. I feel I've gotten a reasonably thorough accounting from birth to death of Wallis's life, as well as some interesting context and analysis. In particular, I found it illuminating the letters exchange between Wallis and her second husband Earnest; their relationship dynamics are pretty fascinating. The analysis of the Duke of Windsor was also quite interesting/illuminating--everything here helps to slot together the puzzle pieces of their love story beyond, well, just the topline love story. It's more complicated than that.

The reason for the lower star rating from me... there were some liberties taken with "theories" that I found to be shockingly unethical. Put plainly: the author puts forth a bizarre theory that a reason Wallis was so "weird" and an explanation for a lot of her behavior (except it really wasn't!) was/is that she had a Disorder of Sexual Development, ie: that she was intersex (DSD is the new, preferred term; but contextually it was intersex that made it click for me). It's... a bizarre passage early on in the book. The author goes on repeatedly throughout the book, in fact, basically calling Wallis ugly/too masculine... and I feel like I'm taking CRAZY PILLS b/c I've always thought she was rather attractive. Not ugly in the slightest? I had to look up the author and, yes, she's a pretty, delicate looking blond so OF COURSE she thinks Wallis was ugly. But to use that as a primary basis for a "diagnosis" of a serious (and very private) condition! "She was manly and thin so she probably had DSD." "Her mother's regular doctor didn't deliver her and record keeping wasn't good back then so she probably had DSD." "She had a surgery in her 20s that was nebulously described it was probably to do with DSD." "Rumors were she was good at oral sex probably b/c she had DSD." "She never had children probably b/c of DSD." MY GOD. I almost DNFed frankly. I find it unethical to make those sorts of assertions based on flimsy evidence. There are a million possible medical explanations just as modern as DSD. Maybe she had PCOS and she had to have a hysterectomy? Or maybe she had ovarian cysts? Lots of reasons a woman might have surgery in her 20s that would later impact fertility. And her thinness? She clearly had an eating disorder--interestingly hinted at in the book but never called out. So you can allege someone has DSD but not anorexia? That's the line in speculating on the private secrets of a long dead person? I just find it tacky, given the limited evidentiary support.

Similarly, strap in for a shorter but still pretty bold assertion that the Duke of Windsor was probably autistic! Which, again... surely could be interesting but much like the DSD theory it's this little blip in the text based on not much at all--speculation by a few people and a modern lens--and that's it. These two moments are very "tabloid" and feel out of place in an otherwise clearly deeply researched book. All the rest of it--presented with references to first hand or valid second hand sources, is so interesting! Unlike the above theories, Sebba doesn't postulate, re: personality disorders and the like, which is professional and smart... but there's enough in the stories, letters, etc. presented for you to draw your own ideas/theories. The book is both fair to Wallis but also unflinching in parts about some of her rough edges. One of the BEST bits in the book was Mary Kirk's final note about her. It's chilling, really, and says a lot.

So if you're fascinated by Wallis and Edward, as I have been since I was a kid... it's definitely an interesting portrait of Wallis, that digs a bit beyond the surface of the "love story" and is an interesting read. I just really wish they didn't spoil it with specious theories. Can you imagine if, when you are dead, some biographer started digging like "oh they weren't pretty and had a medical procedure they didn't tell anyone about" and suddenly you're intersex in a book? Like JFC.

This book was interesting to me, as I am currently living in London and need as many British history lessons as I can get. But I found the writing fairly pedestrian. Also, it was curious to me that the author says she feels Wallis has been unfairly portrayed as a horrid woman throughout history, so she wants to right this by granting her a fair portrayal. Yet one comes away from this book with a fairly black picture of Wallis. The author makes it pretty much impossible to like her. I also found some of the author's contentions utterly implausible. She suggests fairly early on that Wallis was possibly a biological male, and goes on about the various sexual dysfunctions she may have had. Yet she presents not one shred of evidence to support any of her wild theories. She had not one quote from one doctor or anyone else who may have seen Wallis naked. Not one! I don't find pure conjecture to be interesting - there must be at least some basis for contentions like this. She suggests that the shape of Wallis's face is male... which is fairly ludicrous. I also have a square jaw, and am provably female. These baseless flights of fantasy made me lose trust in the author very early on. I finished the book feeling that Wallis remained a mystery. I never quite felt I had any access to her real inner self. Especially because everyone who was quoted had his or her own agenda to promote.

I'm not a biography writing expert, but wild conjecture and unsubstantiated speculation seem like no-nos to me. That's what most of the 120 pages I got through felt like, and then I just gave up. Sebba claims that Simpson was a hermaphrodite, and while this appears to be a popular rumor, she admits that there is no medical evidence to prove or disprove the possibility. Only the fact that she was childless, not very pretty, and sought power like a man were cited as "evidence" that this might have been the case. (*Tears out all my hair.*) She also delves into weird speculation that Simpson picked up some rather unorthodox sexual techniques during her time in Shanghai, and ultimately attributes this theoretical anomaly to being the only way such an unattractive woman could coerce a man to abdicate the throne for her. Her writing is uninspired and her grammar frequently abecedarian. If Wallis Simpson is someone you wish to know more about, there are a plethora of other biographies floating around, as well as the memoirs of Simpson herself. I don't frequently hate books, but this one was generally insufferable. Don't waste your time.

I started this without any burning desire to know more about 'that woman', but quickly became involved in this account of someone whose life came to be defined by her marriage to King Edward VIII. Though I found her on the whole unpleasant - someone who made a career of avoiding a career, by seeking to marry money and status - I eventually came to have a little sympathy for her. It seems she was far from hell-bent on marrying the king. Rather she became unable to avoid it, and both she and her second husband had to conspire to please the clearly unbalanced monarch.

An interesting, rather than an appealing book.

Just too factual and prone to the misgivings of gossips and unproven theories.
As I read it, I kept wondering if the author just wrote down all her research in one go. On one hand I appreciate how detached she is in her dealing but unfortunately it leads to a book that is dry and choppy in its flow. Let alone the fact that there is just too much speculation about what may have been going in the duch*ess of Windsor's life. By the time I read the last chapter, I couldn't make out if the general perception about the duch*ess was as unkind and unforgiving as it seemed from the writing.

Edytor chyba zaspał i nie zdążył do pracy bo tak chaotycznie napisanej książki jeszcze nie czytałam.
Za dużo zbędnych informacji, masa pomówień i jakiś dziwnych teorii oraz po prostu słaby język.

I’ve never been precisely sure about how I feel about the British royal family. Of course, they benefit from my taxes but they also did away with many of their personal freedoms and general anonymity by their very birth right on entering this world. ‘Horses for courses’ – one might say in England.

I mention all this because, in essence, the life of Wallis (Warfield, Spencer, Simpson, WINDSOR) was locked away into royalty from her first involvement with Edward VIII. The exuberant American Wallis rarely lived a life of freedom and joy despite her passion for world travel and material goods like expensive designer clothing and jewellery. After reading this I began to realise that her existence then was about as sad and nomadic as it came and I really began to like and empathise with her character of a trapped woman. I ultimately felt sorry for this ostracised lady.

I think Sebba does justice to the Wallis character throughout most of the biography and she paints a picture of a wife who is 'loyal to' yet not 'in love with' her husband. She also paints an image of a very stoical and cold royal family who repelled Edward and Wallis even further after the former’s abdication. The story of both Edward and Wallis is thus very sad and, as exiles from Great Britain and without official ‘roles’, both figures had little to do and a very aimless direction to their lives. This is especially sad when you consider how British royalty has changed and modernised somewhat with divorces and divorcees being fully accepted nowadays.

I found some of the biography quite heavy-going in reading terms and it was not a quick read at all although easy to follow. It is interspersed with lots of historical detail and background, particularly from the Thirties era to post-war Britain and Europe. What I didn’t expect though was to be left on a relative cliff-hanger where Sebba seems to stop her biographical narration around the mid-1950s following with a very quick mention of the Duke’s death in 1972 and a mere 12 pages covering Wallis’ remaining life thereafter. Ultimately, I would have hoped for more comment and analysis here to truly understand the older and reflective characters of Wallis and her husband more.

An interesting insight however and I am sure that this lady would have been better understood if not a little more 'loved' had she been born, lived and romanced by Edward a few decades later.

Recommended!

I only read this book, because I have read everything on the Dooch. There are some documents that have released since the publication of the last batch of books (some from the Queen Mother's correspondence,) but basically they don't reveal anything new: just reinforcements of what is known in terms of her Dominatrix personality with the Duke, her charm with men, her greed, the shallow life. I get tired of guesses about her sexuality or her possible skills picked up in some shoo shoo house in Shanghai, because they are speculation and nothing more. There isn't one scrap of evidence to document any of that.

There is the usual proposal that the affair went on too long, that she never meant for it to last that long, that she got caught in the whirlpool. I'm not sure I agree with that. I do think she was conflicted toward wanting the safety of her husband (something she had never had in her earlier life,) versus having the life of unlimited wealth and kowtowing to the grave.

People make much of how the royal family treated her so poorly, but, looking at them as any family with a problem family member (and the Prince/King "was" a problem,) and how could you expect less? I love that the Mitford girls called the Queen Mother "Cake." I picked that up in a Christopher Hitchens essay on Jessica Mitford. From the royals point of view, here was their son (and the Duke's father predicted an abdication years before it happened. He also worried for his son's mental health, as did many,) and he was hooked up with a twice divorced woman who would, in the end, have three living husbands. There was also a ton of evidence to establish her and the Duke's adultery over her husbands, which could have left the duch*ess in complete limbo, in terms of being a "non-wife." She wasn't married, but she couldn't marry, not under English law.

I think once the Duke and duch*ess were sent off into well-cushioned exile it finally sunk in--welcome to your gilded cage.

This book instantly lost some credibility with me when Ms. Sebba makes dangerous, sensitive and unfounded medical assumptions to explain the actions and behavior of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. If I were her editor I would have of suggested to stick to the facts she can back up instead of devoting a whole chapter or repeatedly referencing it as if it was fact instead of crap.

Other than the crap judgements, this book is what you can expect about this unusual relationship. The constant strain between family loyalties and the crown. The role this uncharted relationship would play and the insecurities on both sides of this coin.

I hope to find a better, more truthful book, about this moment history.

Really how could I give this anything else? Wallis has been vilified? Sure. But considering her and the Duke of Windsor were two of the most evil people who ever lived maybe THEY deserved it? Or perhaps the fact this book was so poorly written I couldn't help but laugh. Maybe what really sealed the deal for me was the fact the author suggests Wallis was intersexed without providing any substantial evidence. Real classy.

Perhaps it deserves five stars because they really were the PERFECT COUPLE even if they were IMPS FROM HELL.

Based on recently declassified documents, this book posits that Wallis was truly only in it for a brief fling, but was caught up in a government plot determined to keep Edward off the throne because of his pro-German leanings.

While this book seemed to drag on and on throughout the pages, it is a book to be recommended for those who are interested in the topic of Wallis Simpson, the woman blamed for causing King Edward VIII to abdicate the throne of England. A commoner, twice divorced, she was married to husband number two when she and her husband became part of the inner circle of those in the bright sunshine of the playboy who was known for his prowess with women, and his love of traveling.

Truly, Edward (David) was a boy. In this book the author notes the possibility of autism. Lacking the rudimentary knowledge of what it took to run a country, still Edward was popular in the short time between when his father died and he ascended to the throne and then gave it to his brother Bertie. He lacked the ability to concentrate and follow through with a task.

His intelligence was questioned, as well as his maturity. He had torrid relationships with other married women, including when he first met Wallis.

Whether there was love or obsession with Wallis is up for speculation. He was indeed obsessed, and like a little boy, he wanted what he couldn't have. Until, he placed her in a position where her husband no longer loved her and moved on to marry Wallis' "best" friend. Then, save for a life with The Duke of Windsor, she had nothing.

It is a fascinating story. But, in the end, I felt sorry for everyone involved. While they married and lived in France, they had a small group of friends. But, mainly, they were hermit like. In the end, she died the way she feared she would, ie all alone.

The Duke of Windsor emerges from Anna Sebba’s tremendously fun biography of the duch*ess of Windsor as the ultimate sort of British ass (or really and more vulgarly, a tw*t), egg all over his face, petulant, whiny, selfish and self absorbed. But she, on the other hand, is something else entirely, fascinating, enigmatic, not exactly good, not exactly bad, neither Madonna nor whor*. Sebba’s tale is like an orchestral piece, gradually rising, instrument after instrument being added swelling to “found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love” moment and then, the orchestra marches off and fades into the distance. What has come down to us as the romance of the ages, in Sebba’s (occasionally poison) pen becomes something else. In the end, it’s about this: Did she love him or was she the queen of all gold diggers (she wasn’t going to be queen of anything else). That, my dear friends, would be a spoiler, so read away and find out for yourself.

I see many comments panning this biography of Wallis Simpson. Their critique is a bit harsh in my opinion. "That Woman" is a fairly typical, highly detailed British biography, concerned with past generations of family status and ranking and how that pecking order fits itself into the story being presented. Most North Americans do not have the same class distinctions as do the Brits, ranking being placed primarily on money. That said, familiar with the British chatty, almost laboriously chronicled style, I enjoyed two-thirds of this book immensely and felt cross-eyed, bored, and headachey for the rest. The first third... Wallis' beginnings, two husbands, the meeting of the Prince...is very well done. The last third...the outcome of the marriage...is also interesting. The middle of the book, filled with quotation after quotation of members of British Parliament, Royal staff, society types close to the Crown, friends of the uncrowned King Edward, etc,etc., most of whom I did not know,(aside from Winston Churchill) and did not care to hear about in such a labyrinth maze of "Personages", was too much for me. Perhaps someone British would be able to follow and find the information useful, but the book died there for a while for me. However, I'm glad I persisted. Wallis Simpson had a challenging life, and she spent it trying to control its fate. For Wallis in her era, that meant how her life was linked to the men in it and the security she would ultimately gain for herself, having no other options. Prince Edward was not fit to be a monarch, and Britain got the better deal with his abdication.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, but I think it had more to do with the woman it was about then the book itself. Wallis Simpson led a fascinating life, regardless of what you think of her, and for an Anglophile like me, it's loads of fun getting all the juicy details. The book also covers her whole life, not just her marriage to the Duke of Windsor, and makes you seriously question how much of a "love story for the ages" their marriage really was. The Duke comes off quite badly, a petulant stalker who traps Simpson into a marriage she didn't really want. But Simpson ends up looking just as bad, whining about how she had to live in the Bahamas during WWII, and endlessly bitching about the fact that she didn't get to be "Her Royal Highness."

I had one serious issue with this book. Fairly early on, Sebba comes to the conclusion that Simpson was in some way intersexual. She uses this as the jumping off point for all sorts of psychoanalysis of Simpson, throughout the book (Since she couldn't have children she must have felt...she must have been confused about her lack of sexual desire...yada yada yada). But she has pretty much no evidence to back this up, other than she never had children and she had mannish features. She quotes other people speculating about it, but her sources had no evidence either, so really it's just a big chain of rumors. Very disappointing, and frankly, I'm surprised her editors let her get away with it.

I have wanted to read a book about Wallis Simpson for quite some time so I picked this book up after watching the documentary during a trip to England. While a really enjoying read I found it difficult to accept some of the conjectures that Anne Sebba has made since there is no real evidence that backs them up except for remarks made by others who were not always fans of the couple.

The new evidence that drove this book to be published were letters that were discovered stating that Wallis Simpson had never really wanted to leave her second husband and marry the King, but that his threats of suicide prevented her from leaving. I thought the book would focus more heavily on this, but sadly it did not.

The books also seems to end a few years after the war and wraps up the last 20-30 years of Wallis' life in just one chapter which was a bit disappointing. However, as stated above it is well written and it was a fascinating incite into a woman I'm not sure any of us will really understand. Looking forward to learning more about King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (aka Queen Mother).