The Crown In Crisis – Daily Express, Daily Mail & The Guardian

Gosh, what a busy few days. I’m delighted that my book The Crown In Crisis has been serialised in the Daily Express yesterday (29 June) and today (30 June), with the content revolving around Edward VIII and his Nazi sympathies and the bizarre divorce case of Wallis Simpson. It’s especially appropriate because the Express, and its proprietor Lord Beaverbrook, plays such a central role in the book. You can have a read of the first extract here:

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-express/20200629/281891595546382

Regular readers might also remember that I have mentioned George McMahon, Edward’s would-be assassin, before. I was thrilled that the Guardian, and several other papers (including Italy’s La Repubblica), have run a story about my discovery of McMahon’s extraordinary autobiographical document ‘He Was My King’, about his involvement with the Italian embassy and his MI5 links. Richard Kay of the Daily Mail has also done a fine write-up. You can read some of the pieces here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8472853/RICHARD-KAY-Did-MI5-want-assassin-shoot-Edward-VIII-Newfound-dossiers-reveal-explosive-story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/28/british-state-covered-up-plot-to-assassinate-king-edward-viii

A lot more to come – podcasts, TV appearances, reviews, etc. All will be linked to here as and when they appear.

 

The Crown in Crisis – Daily Telegraph serialisation

I’m delighted to announce that the book has been serialised in today’s Daily Telegraph, in the Telegraph Magazine. It’s an absolute thrill to see it in the paper and it looks fantastic, thanks to the rare and archive pictures that’s accompanying the story. You can read it online here – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2020/06/27/inside-story-loveaffair-almost-tore-apart-royal-family/ – but I would strongly recommend that you buy a paper, for full effect.

The Crown in Crisis – US publication date and first reactions

Not long to go now until British publication of The Crown in Crisis, which will be available from your local bookshop (should it have reopened) or online emporium of choice from Thursday 9 July. American readers will have their chance to purchase the book from 19 January 2021 (tbc), and more details will be here when I have them. (I’ve had a chance to see the US cover design, and I can happily say that it looks fantastic.)

While the reviews for the book won’t be out for a few weeks, I’ve sent the book to some heroes of mine, and they’ve responded with some extremely generous comments. Here they are, in all their glory:

Excellent, well written, deeply researched, THE CROWN IN CRISIS is a dynamic revisionist history of the Abdication that brings to life a national and personal drama with a flamboyant cast of princes, charlatans, socialites, courtiers, press barons, politicians and adventurers that is both heartbreaking and glamorous, scholarly and very entertaining. Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs

Alexander Larman’s well-researched and well-written THE CROWN IN CRISIS is both scholarly and highly readable. He has mastered the sources superbly, and his analysis of the extraordinary story is full of thought-provoking insights. Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny

Anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of one of the key events of the 20th century, whose reverberations are still with us today, must read this book.

At times it beggars belief that so many diplomats, politicians, churchmen and newspaper editors devoted so much valuable thinking time to whether or not the King could marry Wallis Simpson.

Larman pulls apart the story and, having absorbed all the latest scholarship and newly released documents, knits it back together without dropping a stitch.

By seeing the crisis from multiple standpoints and accessing new information Larman creates a detailed, comprehensive and compulsively readable account of how the machinations of men at first threatened to derail but then ultimately saved the monarchy in time for the country to face the real enemy – Nazi Germany.

Larman combines the personal with the political, high drama with low morals, to create a compulsively readable account of one of the key events of the 20th century. Even those who think they know all there is to know about this story will find a fresh perspective in this engagingly fun and must read book.
Anne Sebba, author of That Woman

A completely fascinating and authoritative account of the Abdication Crisis, written with tremendous sophistication and insight. William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart

Finally, I have some very exciting news to reveal later this month, so stay tuned for further updates.