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Title details for The Crown in Crisis by Alexander Larman - Available

The Crown in Crisis

Countdown to the Abdication

by Alexander Larman
Richard Trinder
Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

The thrilling and definitive account of the Abdication Crisis of 1936.
On December 10, 1936, King Edward VIII brought a great international drama to a close when he abdicated, renouncing the throne of the United Kingdom for himself and his heirs. The reason he gave when addressing his subjects was that he could not fulfill his duties without the woman he loved—the notorious American divorcee Wallis Simpson—by his side. His actions scandalized the establishment, who were desperate to avoid an international embarrassment at a time when war seemed imminent. That the King was rumored to have Nazi sympathies only strengthened their determination that he should be forced off the throne, by any means necessary.
Alexander Larman's The Crown in Crisis will treat listeners to a new, thrilling view of this legendary story. Informed by revelatory archival material never-before-seen, as well as by interviews with many of Edward's and Wallis's close friends, Larman creates an hour-by-hour, day-by-day suspenseful narrative that brings listeners up to the point where the microphone is turned on and the king speaks to his subjects. As well as focusing on King Edward and Mrs. Simpson, Larman looks closely at the roles played by those that stood against him: Prime minister Stanley Baldwin, his private secretary Alec Hardinge, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang. Larman also takes the full measure of those who supported him: the great politician Winston Churchill, Machiavellian newspaper owner Lord Beaverbrook, and the brilliant lawyer Walter Monckton.
For the first time in a book about the abdication, listeners will hear an in-depth account of the assassination attempt on Edward's life and its consequences, a first-person chronicle of Wallis Simpson's scandalous divorce proceedings, information from the Royal Archives about the government's worries about Edward's relationship with Nazi high-command Ribbentrop and a boots-on-the-ground view of how the British people saw Edward as they watched the drama unfold. You won't be able to put down The Crown in Crisis, a full panorama of the people and the times surrounding Edward and the woman he loved.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
"fresh chronicle...Mr. Larman brings his cast of characters vividly to life in a fast-paced, lively staging of the drama. It's as much fun to read as a good political thriller." —Wall Street Journal

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 19, 2021

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781250794734
      • File size: 318186 KB
      • Duration: 11:02:53

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The 1936 abdication of Britain's King Edward VIII gets a full hearing in this absorbing audiobook. Journalist Alexander Larman offers a fresh view--a candid, highly detailed account of what happened and why. Narrator Richard Trinder sounds just like a 1930s British newscaster, and he's most effective pacing a multi-perspective narrative that compares contemporary accounts to private diaries, published memoirs to their unedited versions, and files long sequestered to each other. Trinder's dialogue voices, however, are disappointing. His Edward sounds very much like his Wallis, she with a Southern accent, and his Churchill (a marker for British narrators) is just passable. No matter. The story carries you along, and the better you know it already, the more you'll appreciate Larman's scrupulous reconstruction. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 16, 2020
      Historian Larman (Byron’s Women) delivers a juicy account of the events leading up to and following British monarch King Edward VIII’s abdication in December 1936. As German ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop tried to forge an alliance with Edward, Larman notes, the British government was distracted by the “vexatious” king’s affair with Wallis Simpson, a 40-year-old American divorcée. Viewed by royal courtiers as a “gold digger” with a “capacity for inspiring dislike,” Simpson, who was still married to her second husband when she began her relationship with Edward, was rumored to have learned “specific sexual arts” while living in China in the 1920s. Larman delves into newspaper magnate Lord Beaverbrook’s role in suppressing news of the affair and Simpson’s impending divorce, and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s attempts to dissuade Edward from marrying Simpson. Lengthy subplots, including a review of recently declassified MI5 files indicating that a July 1936 incident in which a man threw his pistol at Edward might have been orchestrated by Italian spies, add intrigue but disrupt the narrative momentum. Still, even dedicated royal watchers will learn something new from this comprehensive account of one of the biggest scandals in the history of the British monarchy.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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