Ever After: Diana and the Life She Led

by Anne Edwards

"This is the stuff of fairy tales," said the Archbishop of Canterbury on July 23, 1981, after the 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer arrived in a glass coach for her wedding to Prince Charles. But everyone knows how that fairy tale ended.

Drawing upon intensive research and interviews, acclaimed biographer Anne Edwards, well-known for her revelatory and incisive books on members of Britain's royal family, here uncovers new details of Diana's life and her search for love; of her family background; and of a betrayal, historic in its outcome. What the public did not know at the time of her storybook wedding was the true story of Diana's troubled childhood-of the cold, autocratic grandfather who disdained her father, who was himself an abusive husband obsessed with having a son to inherit the Spencer wealth and title.

When Diana married Prince Charles, she joined the equally troubled House of Windsor, and was caught up in a plot Shakespearean in its deception and eventual tragic ending. Anne Edwards paints a vivid portrait of a woman desperate in her marriage, fearful of her life, who became devious-and often brilliant-in the moves she played in a treacherous royal chess game.

As in her superb biographies of other royal and celebrated women, Anne Edwards's Ever After transcends the one-sided views of Diana in a work that must be called definitive. At long last, and with all of the insight and narrative drama that have marked her previous bestsellers, Edwards brings us the first full-scale, authoritative portrait of a more intelligent, more resourceful, and sometimes more ruthless woman than we have seen before.

"Diana's many fans are sure to be delighted by Edwards's intimate prose and detailed descriptions." - Publishers Weekly

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

372 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Misbah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reads like the fairytale life that Princess Diana lead. But it doesn't do her the injustice of glossing over the hard times in her life that helped her become the amazing person that she was.
After reading this I realized that she had the type of lifestyle most people dream of and she left all of that for self-love and spent most of her adult life genuinely fighting for those who were too weak to speak for themselves.
By the end I had begun to adore the imperfectly perfect Princess that had lived and died long before I ever knew who she was.
Honestly I think the British Monarchy is still benefiting from the image of royalty that Diana created more than 20 years ago.

[Tamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is exquisite - Anne Edwards has created a poignant, deeply touching, and well-rounded portrait of the late Princess of Wales and everyone who was important to her life.

And a highly-readable one: in one day, I went from page 19, in the morning, to page 224 before I went to bed. The edition I read had 342 pages of pure text, not counting picture pages, the bibliography, or the index, and I flew through them - until I realised what end I was actually racing towards, and then I slowed, considerably, not wanting the book to end. The author did the same, I felt, slowing down time as the Princess's death approached, describing each day in her final week with overwhelmingly precise detail.

It is the second book about Diana that I've finished in the past week, the first being Diana Her True Story by Andrew Morton. I found that reading that one first gave me a foundation of knowledge, a framework of sorts, about the chronology of Diana's life, a sort of outline which this one then filled out with a full and greater richness. And as I read, I noticed myself noting similarities and divergences of the two, until it became clear to me how much weaker the other is - and how much this one sings - in comparison. Where that one was biased, this strove to remain impartial, and to maintain fairness to all persons being described (i.e., where Morton's book vilified Prince Charles, Edwards's book presented him as misunderstood and, rightfully, flawed, but also as endearing and pitiable in his own right). But I was most definitely tickled and amused at the page-and-a-half-long description of the publication of the Morton book that Edwards included in hers, which underscored its significance nonetheless.

I then went on to watch the Academy Award-winning film, The Queen, and got actual chills to see the events described in the book play out before me in visual form. When they showed video of the actual Princess, I shivered.

And although I did find a mistake - at the occasion of Prince Harry's birth, Edwards states that it happened on the 12th of September, 1984, when it was actually on the 15th - the book was very wonderful, and it did Princess Diana true justice.

[Princess Diana's] story was an amazing welding of fairytale and soap opera....There is an amazing duality about Diana: she was a saint with mortal passions, a fairytale princess who encapsulated all the problems faced by women of her time. She was the most famous woman in the world who publicly confessed to adultery, attempted suicide, an eating disorder, and was loved even more for doing so. She died young, at the height of her beauty and popularity in a ghastly car crash. The tragedy was of ancient Greek dimension.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

First and foremost, no book about Diana, Princess of Wales gets more than three stars from me, precisely because, well, its' a biography about Diana, Princess of Wales. Three stars for me is as much as a book about a privileged princess deserves, basically. (Unless it's Tina Brown's biography of the late princess, which I gave five stars, because, well, it's Tina Brown, people.) So: I give this book the highest mark it deserves for its subject matter. Three stars, Anne Edwards, job well done! I loved this book precisely because Diana's bulimia and depression is given SO MUCH thought and consideration, and no other book I know of about Diana does this. I believe Diana's bulimia and depression are paramount in discussing her life. She was a woman driven by inner needs - not wants - needs. Her needs consisted of love, and this love - for Charles - never fully got reciprocated, which is not only devastating, but her love then turned into hatred for herself (hence bulimia and depression), and Anne Edwards makes this clear. Diana's love for things like sex and food were what she ultimately hated most about herself, precisely because she was trapped into a loveless marriage where her image was of utmost importance to her, and her complete hatred of herself manifested itself in the inverse: she gorged and then purged, fought and then cried with Charles. So, she basically led the most depressing life ever, and that's what I like about Diana, and this book: it makes the depressing stuff SO clear-cut. It was, after all, what Diana's entire life in the public eye consisted of. So. Hooray! A biography about Diana that actually addresses these issues. Three stars, Anne Edwards, three stars: a solid book. If only because Diana's bulimia and depression were actually discussed on a more than extremely superficial level.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing style of the biography particularly annoyed me, which made the book a bit difficult to read. I was not really surprised by any of the content, except perhaps at how immature both Diana and Charles were at the time of their marriage. Her dramatics which were never-ending, eating disorder coupled with her incredible NEED for love and her lack of preparation for the role she most covets were sad, but something we all knew. Charles’s rigidity, his ego bolstered by sport & Camilla, and his blatant need for an heir is both pathetic and tragic.

The only real information I gleaned from this book is the rationale for the Royal Family’s & the Queen’s “Loosening” of decorum and acceptance for human character traits in most recent years. Of course, they were losing their popularity contest. Diana showed them in death, more elegance, and maturity through the love of the subjects of the kingdom, than perhaps she did in life. An “OKAY” accounting of the life of England’s Rose.

[Kissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well researched biography focusing on Diana's life as she transforms from shy girl to the "People's Princess." The author does well with presenting information in a non-biased away and keeping the flow of information going smoothly, making it hard to put the book down (regardless of you already know what comes next). Excellent choice for any fan of British royalty, whether it's Diana herself or any of the others she had connections with.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure how this compares to other biographies of Diana, but I was fascinated by the history and traditions of the Royal Family. It was especially interesting to read how things changed after the Princess's death and in light of Will and Kate.

[Deb Stratas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite biographies of Princess Diana. Extremely thorough, well researched and fair to all parties, it gives a very well-balanced view of the marriage, affairs, divorce, etc. If you want the whole story with an unbiased voice, Ever After is your choice for a Princess Diana read!

[Pallavi Deshpande · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wealth and happiness are not directly proportional but inversely proportional.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just started today.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I shouldn't read books about people when I know they are going to die in the end. I cried and cried.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

found out a few things that i didn't know.good information.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had a historical tone to it

[Kelly Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned so many more details surrounding Diana than I had previously known. I don't think I will ever be able to look at the older royals the same way again.