The Woman He Loved

by Ralph G. Martin

Never in history had a love affair so stirred the imagination of so many millions of people all over the world. But then, never before had the king and emperor of the greatest empire in the world given up his throne to marry the woman he loved.

Ralph G. Martin, author of the best-selling THE LIFE OF LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, has written the first full story of the romance of the century. It is a dual biography of the girl from Baltimore, Wallis Warfield, and the Prince Charming of the World, whose heart she had captured.

The Prince could have picked from any of the most beautiful women, but chose instead this married woman of forty, already once divorced, and the world wondered why. THE WOMAN HE LOVED provides those answers frankly and completely--answers that involve sex and politics and the all-too-human side of British royalty. It is the story of one of the most fascinating women of our time, of the making and unmaking of a king, of the high drama of abdication, and of a cast of characters ranging from Prime Minister Baldwin and the Archbishop of Canterbury to Winston Churchill and Aly Khan.

Martin's book openly discusses the difficulties of the Windsor's marriage, their much-criticized visit to Hitler's Germany, their flight from war-torn France, their part in the mystery surrounding the murder of Sir Harry Oakes in the Bahamas, their intimacy and problems with Woolworth heir Jimmy Donahue, and in a series of brilliant chapters, shows them in the second part of their lives, the center of the International Set.

Filled with new facts and never-told-before stories, THE WOMAN HE LOVED is an unauthorized biography that tells the final truth about the greatest love story of our time!

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Royalty, Historical, British Literature, Biography Memoir

608 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Ralph G. Martin was an American journalist who authored or co-authored about thirty books, including popular biographies of recent historical figures, among which, Jennie, a two-volume (1969 and 1971) study of Winston Churchill's American mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, became the most prominent bestseller. Other successful tomes focused on British royal romance (Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson in 1974, as well as Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1985) and on the Kennedy family (John F. Kennedy in 1983 and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. in 1995).

Born in Chicago, Martin was eight years old when his family moved to Brooklyn, New York. He studied at City College of New York and, subsequently, the University of Missouri, where he graduated in 1941 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

Twenty-one years old upon receiving his diploma, Martin decided to hitchhike and found a newspaper job at the Box Elder News Journal which served Brigham City, the county seat of Utah's Box Elder County. In December, following the U.S. declaration of war in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Martin enlisted in the Army and spent the war as a combat correspondent for the Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes and the Army weekly magazine, Yank. In 1944, after having interviewed New York City's mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, for Yank, Martin asked La Guardia to perform his marriage ceremony to Marjorie Pastel.

Returning to civilian life in 1945, Martin began working as editor for news and analysis publications Newsweek and The New Republic and became executive editor at decorating and domestic arts magazine House Beautiful. During the months preceding the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections, he served as a member of the campaign staff for the Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson.

Having lived for years in the Connecticut town of Westport, near New York City, Martin moved to the Kendal on Hudson retirement community in another of the city's suburbs, Sleepy Hollow, where he died seven-and-a-half weeks before his 93rd birthday. He and his wife Marjorie were the parents of two daughters and a son.

Reviews

[Debbie W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this comprehensive biography (published in 1973) about King Edward VIII and his wife, Wallis Simpson, several years ago, and it has stayed with me to this day! It's a very informative look into their lives before meeting up until shortly after the Duke of Windsor's death. It contains 32 pages of b/w photos, plus a portrait on the cover.

Glad I grabbed my dad's copy before he gave it away!

I highly recommend this book for fans of the British royal family!

[Jessaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book back in 70s and thought it to be a very romantic story.

[Bibliovoracious · Rating 3 out of 5]

I lugged this little paperback around for at least five years before finally reading it. I was so curious about the scandalous story of the king who abdicated for a "commoner", oooooh! I hope it was accurate, as this book is now my entire knowledge of the affair. I liked the glimpse of the two of them that happens in The King's Speech movie. That characterization seems consistent with the book.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly detailed biography of Wallis Simpson's life and her relationship with the Duke of Windsor. I didn't know half of the information presented here, especially everything that occurred after the abdication. What a fascinating look at this couple!

[Pat Jorgenson Waterchilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful yet tragic love story. I have always wanted to learn more about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. So glad I found this book.
Very well written as it transport the reader through the separate then married life of Wallis and David Windsor. The author's research is remarkable and I enjoyed this book very, very much.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book for 25cents at a thrift shop. I suspended reading a Ruth Rendell to read this. It is very well written. It held my interest throughout I felt it a balanced analysis of all the major characters in this drama. The title implies that it's about Wallis Simpson. It's just as much about the Duke of Windsor. I'm impressed with the way the author organized a wealth of material. Sometimes biographies are too detailed. This one is not. It's just right.

I just read this again, not entirely intentionally. I enjoyed it all over again. It's so well written. It's a pleasure to read. I like it better than any of the other books on this subject I have read. it's the style and organization. Authors disagree significantly on some important points. I understand the cache of letters from Wallis to Ernest Simpson recently found may revise the story again.

[Jeri Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realize when I picked this book up that this whole story was being played out at the time my grandmother arrived from Hungary. She learned English by reading the newspaper - and I'm sure she must have read every article about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. It was quite the scandal. I enjoyed reading about what life was like at that particular time. I probably enjoyed it more than the average reader would.

[Pattim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when it came out in 1974 and then re-read in 2010 with my book club. I love English history and stories of the Royals so this was what attracted me to it. I couldn’t imagine why David (King Edward) would give up the throne.... but after reading about his life and his personality... it made me think he wasn’t really fit to be king. (Who is???). This is really a great book that fulfilled my curiosity about his life and reasons behind his abdication.

[Lesley Koke DeWig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book for $1.00 dollar used in a Small Washington town on a camping trip. I was like 15 and read it in about 6 days. Great love story

[Katie Breece · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched and well-written. This is a very detailed look at the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. It is an interesting story that I had not read about before and it seems like this book fills a gap in historical text about the royal family. As it was biographical it wasn't always the most exciting but it did always come across as authentic and gave an inside look into the man who gave up his throne for a woman and the woman he loved.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

[Mark White · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short version: worth reading not only for the story but for the background on the royals and British parliament which rings true even today.
I found this on our shelves recently, a school book prize of my wife's dating from 1976! Normally I wouldn't have bothered to read this but following the recent Harry and Meaghan hoopla it piqued my interest. At first I was disinterested - Wallis and Edward were people I don't know from an age and social strata I couldn't really connect with and the objections to the marriage seem pointless from a modern perspective. But then, with the reactions of the royal family and the British parliament, it started to get interesting. Not only were they vehemently opposed to Wallis but they were unfailingly vindictive to the end of Edward's life and beyond.
It is a picture of double standards - affairs and divorces abound among the British upper classes, yet they will not countenance the king marrying a divorcee for fear the lower classes get ideas. And as it says in the book, the lower classes didn't like Wallis because she was divorced, the upper classes didn't like her because she was American. It seems little has changed and I can fully understand why anyone would want to leave the royal family. It is exactly like the stories of people leaving a cult and being completely cut off by their family and so called friends.
The other side of the story is an insight into the world of privilege enjoyed by the super wealthy - a precursor to Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with a vengeance. Wallis and Edward continued to enjoy a life of luxury few can comprehend, but marred by loneliness, alienation and a complete waste of talent, ability and ambition.

[Isabel Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si bien al principio resulta un poquitín aburrida, lo bueno no tarda en aparecer cuando se inicia el recorrido de Wallis por el camino que la llevará a convertirse en un ícono romántico del siglo XX.
Wallis, plebeya, norteamericana, divorciada. David, príncipe de Gales y heredero del trono más importante de Europa. Al principio creo que ni ellos tenían intención de ser más que "amigos entrañables". De hecho, de la narración que hace el autor, se nota que Wallis no pretendió, al menos al principio, otra cosa que ser más que una amiga influyente. No se, y el libro no ahonda en ello, si en algún otro momento ella cambió de opinión o tal vez se ilusionó con la idea de ser reina.
Pero sí creo que Wallis se llevó la peor parte de toda la historia, desde que se le atribuyan todo tipo de inmoralidades hasta la odie todo un país, aunq al parecer ella nunca quiso ser reina o al menos nunca quiso la abdicación. El hecho es que cualquiera haya sido su intención, original o final, ser reina o no, aguantó estoicamente y se quedó hasta el final con su David, a pesar del ostracismo con el que los castigaron los Windsor.
Una de las biografías mejor logradas que he leído y que le hace justicia plenamente a la gran historia de amor que forjaron Wallis y David.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read quite a few books that address the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, but none from the perspective of Edward or Wallis Simpson. The other books were focused on Queen Mary, George VI, Elizabeth II, or another member of the Royal Family. Martin's book provides a thorough biography of Wallis as well as Edward. While I had a basic understanding of Wallis, this book filled in a lot of details about her childhood, first and second marriages, and ultimately her life as Duchess of Windsor. Considering Martin's book was published in 1974, it was in many ways ahead of its time since Wallis was still living at the time, and he assessed her frankly based on the facts. Martin does an admirable job of filling in details about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's ill-considered trip to Germany in 1937, time in the Bahamas. He conducts a fair assessment of Edward's neglect of his duty as a member of the Royal Family and the love between Edward and Wallis. I appreciated that Martin does not get starry-eyed about Edward and Wallis's love, but rather puts it in the context of their many failings. An interesting biography.

[Latham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book spent most of its emphasis on the life of Wallis Simpson, until her husband dies, and they just wrap it up fast. That was a bit disappointing...and some of the commentary about her is a bit chauvinistic, but the story is interesting and I had not realized that the former king was completely ostracized by his family. Overall, it reads like a tragic love story, rather than a joyful one.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

#115 of 120 books pledged to read during 2017

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Except for the part on World War II (chapters 33-35), this was a laborious read. It is less of a story about love and more of a story about unhealthy relationships.

[Caitlin Spaulding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informational, lots of good insight.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my usual genre but I enjoyed this book. Love the history within.

[Caitlin]

The Woman He Loved: The Story of the Duke & Duchess of Windsor by Ralph G. Martin (1975)

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

a little long!

[SuzAnne King · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definately the "story" of the century but probably not the "love story" of the century. Glosses over the truth a bit.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most well written biographies I've ever read.

[Sheryn Pinchin]

Completed reading on 02/21/2013