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William Collins
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London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017
Copyright © 2017 Prospect Media Ltd
Cover photograph © Tim Graham / Getty Images
Patrick Jephson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 978-0-00-825929-7
Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008260125
Version: 2017-07-17
PRAISE FOR SHADOWS OF A PRINCESS
‘The most indelible, authentic word-portrait ever painted of the People’s Princess’
Daily Mail
‘Jephson’s revelations are important. They are a stark corrective to the baroque fantasies constructed around the Princess immediately after her death’
Evening Standard
For Mary Jo, with love and thanks
CONTENTS
Introduction to the 2017 Edition
INTRODUCTION TO THE 2017 EDITION
You may sometimes wonder why Princess Diana still casts such a long shadow over Britain’s thousand-year-old ruling dynasty. Like me, you may welcome it as a gentle reminder that her story remains relevant, an enduring example of the good things royalty can achieve, as well as a warning of the price it can exact. Or, like some others, you may feel her shadow upon you as an irritation, since it points to the inconvenient reality of Diana’s popular and it seems permanent place among the most admired names of recent history. A few in this second group would have us believe that Diana and her admirers are classic examples of the modern fashion for emotional incontinence – a betrayal of the traditional British stiff upper lip: that in reality she was flawed and frail, a symbol of weakness not strength, and so whoever replaces her in the national shop window must now be more deserving of our interest and approval.
Yet twenty years