Zwanenzang: Diana, mijn zus

by Charles Spencer, Catalien van Paassen (Translator), Willem van Paassen (Translator)

In september 1997 stond Charles Spencer in Westminster Abbey en deelde hij voor het oog van de wereld zijn verdriet om het verlies van zijn geliefde zus Diana. Nu, bijna dertig jaar later, vertelt hij het verbijsterende verhaal van zijn leven met Diana en de tragische week van haar dood.

Tijdens hun jeugd waren Charles en Diana, de jongste twee Spencers, onafscheidelijk - ze noemden elkaar in het geheim Duch en Carlos. Ze waren elkaars intiemste vertrouweling en zwierven samen over het familielandgoed, doorstonden veeleisende kostscholen, overleefden tirannieke nanny's en hielpen elkaar door het verdriet rond de echtscheiding van hun ouders.

Maar alles veranderde toen Diana trouwde met de prins van Wales, nu koning Charles III, en van de ene op de andere dag wereldwijd een icoon werd. Charles zag hoe zijn zus zich inzette voor de verworpenen van deze wereld en genoot van het moederschap van haar twee gekoesterde zoontjes.
Maar achtervolgd door een barbaarse pers terwijl haar koninklijke huwelijk op de klippen liep, stond ze er hopeloos alleen voor. Haar broer probeerde er altijd te zijn voor Diana - tot die gitzwarte avond in augustus 1997.

In Zwanenzang biedt Charles Spencer ons een buitengewoon intiem, liefdevol en eerlijk portret van zijn zus.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, History, Audiobook, Royalty, Biography Memoir

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2026

Reviews

[Jill Meyer]

I read a lot of nonfiction; mostly history, biographies, memoirs, etc. And the problems come in as to how to rate the book. Do you judge it by the quality of the writing or by the quality of the subject and author?

Well, as you can see, I gave it 5 stars, because no matter how lousy Charles Spencer is as a person, he’s a pretty good historian and author. He also comes off as an unpleasant and priggish person but clearly one who loved and valued his older sister, Diana, long before she became Princess of Wales.

Most people reading SWAN SONG will be familiar with the ultimately sad life of Diana. Earl Spencer knows the players, both Royal and not, and whether he’s correct in his facts and opinions, he’s written a good book.

[Aggie]

It is difficult to dismiss Charles Spencer’s recollections in "Swan Song." A conversation that cold and emotionally charged isn't something a person easily forgets. Even King Charles III has a well-documented history of losing his temper over something as small as a misplaced pen! Furthermore, Spencer's background as a trained historian lends significant credibility to his account; it is highly probable he maintained detailed journals even decades ago. This is very clear to me - the British media is savage and controls the narrative.

This memoir truly feels like his definitive "swan song." By waiting nearly thirty years to share this perspective-and given the Spencer family's long history of avoiding the press and refusing to monetize royal ties-his motivations feel entirely authentic. I find his account believable.

[Cora]

This was deeply moving and far more profound than the salacious extracts which the media have latched onto may suggest. The way this book has been sensationalised ironically proves many of Spencer's points about them.

As someone who was born after Diana(it strikes me after reading this, that we so often refer to her by only her first name, suggesting how close we still feel to her)'s untimely death, I appreciated the personal insights into what sort of person she was. I feel like so much of that has been lost in the circumstances of her death and her connection to the royal family, but she was an incredible humanitarian and I certainly feel a strange sense of grief, which I have never really felt before, that the world has been deprived of her presence. She should still be here, lending her voice to numerous worthy causes in an increasingly grim world and, of course, on a more personal level, being with the family who so clearly still desperately miss her.

A very well-written memoir and a gripping read. I couldn't put it down.

[Tamára]

Nunca me senti particularmente fascinada pela família real britânica, ao contrário da minha mãe. No entanto, tenho um interesse genuíno por figuras históricas como as mulheres de Henrique VIII, as intrigas do casamento da Rainha Vitória e o reinado de Elizabeth I, etc.
Mas a verdade é que tudo o que acontece hoje será história um dia, certo? Então, por que não mergulhar nestas polémicas e aprender mais sobre elas?

Confesso que sempre senti uma grande hipocrisia em torno da família real. Foi essa sensação que me levou a devorar o livro do Príncipe Harry há alguns anos. Independentemente da opinião sobre a sua esposa, sempre o considerei injustiçado. Este livro, juntamente com as recentes declarações da casa real ao seu lançamento, reforçam a minha convicção.

“O Canto de Cisne”, de Charles Spencer, irmão da Lady Di, é um livro bem escrito, independentemente do seu conteúdo. Embora sinta apenas uma ligeira curiosidade pelos meandros desta família, devo admitir que devorei o livro quase todo num dia. O mérito é do autor, claro.

Apreciei também o facto de o livro se focar claramente na perspetiva do autor sobre os acontecimentos que o rodeavam. Spencer nunca afirma que a sua versão dos factos seja a única verdade, mas sim a sua perspetiva pessoal. Ele não fala pela irmã nem pelos sobrinhos.

Não esperem um livro que retrate a vida da princesa. Embora conheçamos alguns detalhes da sua infância, adolescência e casamento, o foco principal do livro é o luto do seu irmão. Neste sentido, o livro oferece uma perspetiva refrescante. Embora forneça alguma informação sobre a vida pessoal da Diana, como mencionei, centra-se principalmente nas experiências do seu irmão ao longo da sua vida.

E bem, alguns destes testemunhos podem deixar o leitor de boca aberta, mas não me surpreenderam. Na verdade, como referi anteriormente, apenas reforçaram algumas das ilações apresentadas no livro do filho. A indiferença do Rei Carlos, a necessidade de proteger a todo o custo uma família repleta de escândalos e, claro, o ataque implacável que a Lady Di sofreu por parte dos paparazzi e jornalistas, são temas centrais ao longo da obra. Mais do que a família real, o principal fantasma e alvo de crítica aqui é a perseguição tóxica e abusiva a que a Lady Di foi submetida.

Apreciei imenso o livro.

[Mark]

As a massive fan of Diana ( prob read about 40 books about her life over the years ) there was no way I wasn’t going to read it…with some reservations, these reservations being partly proven right with the Piers Morgan rebuttal of ‘facts’ and the authors apology

That aside it is heartfelt and you are left with no doubt he loved Diana, the road to this love may not have always been clear but it was there and steadfast

Of course the day of Diana’s death is covered and like everyone took me back to that day and the complete shock and silence in our local ‘Safeway’ as people were too stunned to say anything and didnt know how to react to the unbelievable, never experienced anything since like it

Fascinating to read ( again ) of the family history and how Diana’s life evolved and very poignant to see how he wrote his eulogy and a very funny story how he managed to stop the ‘men in suits’ hearing it in rehearsals, also of his interactions with the then Prince Charles and of course his nephews Prince William and Harry

The day of Diana’s funeral is very emotive as he explains minute by minute how the day went, I didn’t realise the march behind the coffin was 2 miles long,it doesn’t seem 30 years since we all watched it

As say he obviously loved his Sister and it’s apparent throughout

No review will change anyones mind on the validity of this book or whether ES should have written it and what his motives were, monetary or otherwise, I tend to side with good motives but don’t judge anyone else’s opinions on the book or the author

Personally had to read it and so have!

[Dana Gee]

This is a piece of garbage set out to damage everyone involved.

[Tanja Berg]

I remember waking up the day after my graduation party and putting on the radio. They said that Diana had died in a car crash. I rushed up the stairs to the kitchen, where my parents greeted the news with "that can't be right". I switched on BBC news. It was true.

I was too young too far away to have any memory of Diana's fairytale wedding. I was old enough to follow the deterioration of her marriage, the multitude of press escalated scandals, and the infamous interview where she said that "well, there were three of us in that marriage". For a decade I was fed pictures, books and magazine covers and articles of Diana. Then she was just gone.

I read Charles Spencer's autobiography about his boarding school days quite recently, and I was surprised at how well he wrote. Thus, as soon as I saw that he had a book coming out about his sister, the former Princess of Wales, and the mother of the future king, I pre-ordered it immediately.

The book starts with Diana's demise. One timeline continues from here until the funeral. The other timeline has Spencer's reflections on their childhood together, and her marrying into the monarchy. It is deeply personal, sad and reflective. There is a good dash of press and royalty bashing which is mostly very funny. I can well understand how the British monarchy has already had a formal statement on the book.

Charles Spencer's motivation for the book is to leave a truer record for posterity about a woman who was not, according to what her ex husband hissed at his brother in law, "forgotten soon enough". The author has done Diana a great justice, showing her complexity and humanity.

[Michelle Donofrio]

Spencer took his three minute eulogy of nearly thirty years ago and expounded upon it, in the end profiting and further exploiting the sister and nephews he swore to protect.

[Janine]

Charles Spencer has written a glowing and moving paean to his sister, Diana, who though beautiful, famous, empathetic and a loving mother didn’t achieve a life of happiness which you would think would happened. She was a princess after all (when twelve I remember thinking that’s what I wanted to be only to be told by older sister I would have been a peasant - I think my sister was onto something).

I am among those who were very distraught the day Diana died. Like many who at times live vicariously (I still hadn’t reconciled myself to being a peasant) I admired her verve, her beauty and more importantly her empathetic efforts on behalf of others, remembering her hospital visits, being touched by her visit with Mother Teresa among other causes she championed. Spencer does evoke this sense and documents his great love for his older sister that has endured through time but more especially after their parents divorced. This appears to have been the seminal event in these two siblings’ lives that has driven their desire to be loved (Spencer certainly has had a checkered love life which he does allude to). So while the world loved her, its pursuit to know her was cruel at times.

Spencer shares childhood memories which though they lived very cozily seemed pretty normal though frugal. The entrance into the royal family changed that lifestyle and also brought with it rigid rules, press scrutiny and a loveless marriage. He portrays Diana as very much in love with Charles but from the small tidbits in the book Charles doesn’t come off well. Spencer also says he suffers from (as he maintains Diana did as well) rejection sensitive dysphoria - this occurs when a person is deliberately or accidentally rejected from social interactions or relationships which is explored a bit in the book - though since I know little about this condition I can only acknowledge that the excessive scrutiny end criticism by the British press might have given me its symptoms.

I really know nothing about the author beyond that he is Diana’s brother. So I found a review in The Guardian with the following: “For fans of petty grievances . . . the book is an absolute corker of resentment. . . and in Spencer we have a hero, who, decades after the fact, is still harping about [them].” Spencer has a great cast of characters to dump on. The worst to me was the perfidious Martin Bashar, though their evil stepmother, Raine, elicited the need for details. But Spencer is also a bit self-pitying - such as those references to that social condition, why he had to refuse to let Diana and her sons live at Althorpe, his agonizing efforts of writing his eulogy. A lot of the book seems to be more about him than her.

I listened to the book read by the author. I thought that it was well done. British royal geeks and lovers of Diana will undoubtedly want to read it. I concluded after listening to the book that being a peasant may be a whole lot better than being a princess.

[Lady Alexandrine]

I am very glad that Charles Spencer decided to write a book about his sister Diana. He has written the whole book about a few days in 1997 after he learned about Diana’s death. To prepare a laudation for Diana the author recalls many events from the past. There are many priceless memories of Diana, known only by her brother, so it was wonderful to read about them.

Lord Spencer wrote “Swan’s Song” from two perspectives, that of a brother, who loved his sister very much and that of a historian. Because he is a historian at heart, he didn’t shy away from writing the truth even if it was harmful for others or for Diana’s memory. Many people will not be happy with this book, but I believe that the author needed to write the truth, as a witness to the events that unfolded before his eyes. As a historian it was his duty, much more important than the obligation to be polite and keep quiet about what really happened.

It was impossible for me to read this book without crying. I was a young teenager when Diana died and at that time I didn’t know a lot about her. Of course, I recognised her face, was impressed by her beauty and style, knew that she was involved in helping people around the world. I also knew about her divorce from Charles and that she had two young sons. I was sad when I learned that she died in a car accident, but it was years later that I understood the impact she had on the general public.

After finishing “Swan Song” I would like to tell the author, Lord Spencer: “My Lord, You had done what You could for Your sister and no loving brother could do more. You couldn’t protect her from what happened. Thank You for writing this book in her memory. You can be certain that Diana won’t be forgotten.”

I can’t recommend this book enough.

[Jill S]

completely unnecessary book but loved the salacious vibe. Spencer is a good writer and he proves over and over again how the aristocracy is zero percent in touch with reality. no one needs to read this but I enjoyed being along for the Downton Abbey in 2026 ride.

[Maddie Hoy]

Very insightful look into Diana’s early years and the days after the tragedy of her death. The press were utterly reprehensible to Diana - and Spencer himself - sadly there are clear echoes in the treatment of Diana’s younger son and daughter-in-law playing out today, a constant stream of vicious articles appearing on a daily basis. The abuse seems perpetual.

I do believe the Earl regarding his conversation with the then Prince Charles where he said Diana “would soon be forgotten” in a fit of pique after meeting resistance at his plan to have William and Harry walking behind their mother’s cortège. Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s Director of Communications, confirmed in his published diaries that the boys were used as human shields to prevent the crowd’s verbal abuse towards Charles on that grief filled walk to the Abbey.

Also, it’s true that a royal author and journalist - who was firmly in Charles’ camp during the “War of the Waleses” - wrote a piece where he states Charles “wished Diana nothing more than permanent oblivion”; you need to understand that he would have been briefed that from Charles’ office who were very aware of his thoughts about Diana.

It’s definitely a worthwhile read.

[Novella]

I don’t think anyone is surprised I read this start to finish on release day.

Charles Spencer is first and foremost a great story teller. At no point did I feel lost in the order of things or question what the point was in him telling us what he did.

Of course people have their doubts as to how accurate his recollections are within here but isn’t that always the case with any book like this.

Taking it for what it is, knowing none of us will ever actually know what went on behind the scenes.. it was an enjoyable read and it felt like what he claims he wishes this to be - a brother’s final tribute to his sister.

[Tracey]

This is easily 4.5⭐
Charles Spencer's book is from the heart. His truth without bias. One for the history books. Recommend.

[Kasia]

This is not your traditional biography but more of an extended version of Spencer’s eulogy he gave after Diana’s passing nearly thirty years ago. In my opinion this book is rubbish and it doesn’t offer any new details, just another attempt to cash in and profit from exploitation of his famous sister. DNF 27%

[Michaela Petrikovic]

This book is completely pointless. Just another pathetic attempt to cash in.

[Wiseoldbird]

This is not the type of book I usually read however my curiosity got the better of me.

It felt more of a swan story for Charles Spencer rather than a lovely tribute to his sister. He appears to have pent up anger and expresses it well and truly in this book, which reminds me of the saying 'people in glass houses'. All rather hypocritical when he has had 4 wives and children that refuse to speak to him.

I gave this book 1 star for information that was' he said she said' throughout the book. Memories that cannot be fact checked, and using sensationalism to make money. His thoughtlessness regarding his nephews feelings especially William who is trying to navigate his path into leading the monarchy into this century. Of which he and his family are doing a fantastic job. I'm pretty sure William could have done without this car crash.

I am not a staunch royalist but I loved Diana and remember her for her kindness to others. It's such a shame the focus was elsewhere.

I hope one day that his 3 ex wives and 7 children collaborate to write a book about him. Now that would be an interesting read.

[Manic Booksy Dreamgirl]

Not really a traditional biography, it’s mostly an extension of his eulogy to Diana. I would’ve preferred something much more thorough and balanced but it’s clear that a lot of love and care still went into this.

[Jo Lee]

There’s a saying here “he didn’t miss and hit the wall” seems apt!

[The Bookish Elf]

At 7.12 on the morning of 3 September 1997, having no printer at home, Charles Spencer faxed four handwritten pages to himself. They had taken about ninety minutes to write. Three days later he read them aloud in Westminster Abbey, to his sister's former in-laws and an audience since estimated at 2.5 billion. Swan Song - Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer is the book he has built around those pages, and its organising decision deserves stating plainly: thirty chapters, each titled with a phrase from that speech, and then the speech itself as chapter thirty-one.

Thirty Chapters Named After a Single Morning's Work

Three strands alternate. One runs the week between the death and the funeral almost hour by hour: the phone ringing in Cape Town, the consecration of an island grave, a pontoon bridge thrown across a lake by army engineers. One runs his sister's life chronologically. The third tracks the drafting, from a crowded half-page of headings to the deletions he now regrets.

The payoff is real. By the time you reach the full text you have been shown the manufacture of nearly every clause, which converts a speech remembered as a howl of grief into a drafted document with intentions, written by a man who had spent a decade writing scripts for NBC News and knew how long a sentence can run before an unforgiving acoustic eats it.

What Swan Song - Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer Argues About a Schoolgirl

The strongest thesis here is not about palaces. Spencer has read every one of his sister's school reports, kindergarten to final term, and lays them out in sequence: short concentration, restlessness, a mind repeatedly called flighty, and not one instance across a decade of anybody offering practical help. She sat her O-levels and passed none. He describes her opening the envelope at their mother's house in Scotland, and the sound she made.

His argument is that this, not a divorce or a marriage, set the floor of her self-worth, and that she built a life of charitable work on top of the hole it left. He goes further and proposes a diagnosis nobody could have offered in 1972: undiagnosed ADHD, and the rejection sensitivity that often travels with it. He notes that he is neurodivergent himself and knows the condition from inside, which is both the claim's best support and the reason to read it as a brother's interpretation rather than a finding.

The Reporter Who Came to the Library

The reporting on Martin Bashir is the best sustained passage in Swan Song - Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer, and genuinely new in places, because Spencer kept everything. Approached in 1995 by a Panorama journalist who said explicitly that he did not want an interview, he was shown forged bank statements implicating his own former head of security and then two of his sister's senior staff. He checked the man with Panorama's executive producer, who said he was one of their finest. He then took him to meet his sister in a borrowed flat, and sat taking longhand notes in an NBC notebook while the claims got wilder.

Spencer worked out inside an hour that the man was lying and warned his sister as soon as he had gone. The account of what followed is unsparing about his own failure as well as the BBC's, and the documents in his safe at Althorp mattered to a judge-led inquiry twenty-five years later. He also traces a chain of consequence from that deception to a Paris underpass; the chain has a weak link or two, but it is argued rather than asserted.

Swan Song - Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer and the Question of a Single Witness

The passages that will generate headlines concern the present King, and a reader needs to be clear about their status. Spencer reports a phone call on the morning of the death in which he found the tone jarringly buoyant; a remark after their father's funeral in 1992 about the luck of inheriting young, delivered with a stamped foot; and a furious call about the boys walking behind their mother's coffin, ending in a line about how quickly she would be forgotten.

None of this is corroborated, and none of it can be. It is one man's memory of private conversations with someone who cannot answer in the same register. That matters here because Spencer is otherwise scrupulous with paper: faxes, memos, school reports, a secretary's typed note, his own handwritten proviso about the boys not being dragooned. The honest response is neither to swallow the anecdotes nor to dismiss them, but to notice that the evidentiary standard drops exactly where the temperature rises.

Where Swan Song - Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer Loses Its Footing
The chapter titles govern the chronology, and the chronology suffers. Because each heading is a phrase from the speech, the life strand lurches across decades. Several transitions are handbrake turns.
The drafting material outstays its welcome. Fascinating for twenty pages, then a concordance, with passages logging a deleted adverb.
Chapter thirty-one is redundant by design. Having walked you through almost every line, printing the speech entire adds ceremony, not information.
The case against the tabloids is made, then made again. It is the right case, argued with real evidence, and it recurs well past the point of persuasion.
The royal-anecdote layer sits oddly. A corgi's ear, a bottle of raffle sherry, an exiled great-uncle in spats. Entertaining, tonally strange in a book about a violent death.
Content Notes

Swan Song - Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer is heavier than its jacket suggests. A sibling's death in a car crash, narrated from inside the family. Suicidal ideation stated plainly by the author about himself and about his sister, in both cases with what stopped them. Eating disorders throughout, with weights given. The death of a newborn with severe malformations, and a mother prevented from holding him. Physical abuse of two small children by paid carers. A sexual assault on his sister, recounted to him by her. A stroke and long convalescence. Heavy drinking. Sustained press harassment, including of a bereaved family and a dying woman, and photographers at a fatal crash scene. A false public allegation of spousal abuse against the author's late father, rebutted at length. Divorce and custody proceedings.

The Verdict

The title of Swan Song - Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer comes from an epigraph about the swan's last and sweetest song, and from his observation that his sister died too suddenly to utter one of her own. He wrote hers. He is in his sixties now, neither parent reached seventy, and he says openly that this is a swan song of his own, and the only one of his ten books that matters to him.

What survives is smaller and better than the controversy. A nine-year-old leaving her classroom to check that her little brother has settled on his first day, then reporting that he is doing fine. A girl of five or six closing every curtain in a large house at dusk, which her brother reads as a child taking over a departed mother's job. Four black swans arriving at a lake as a stranger's gift, the morning after he had privately decided to find some. A man in a pulpit pretending to have mislaid his speech because he has just realised it is about to be vetted, reading a page of the prayer book instead.

Swan Song - Diana, My Sister by Charles Spencer is partisan and says so on its first page. It is too clever structurally for its own chronology, and its hardest accusations rest on a single memory apiece. But it is the only account of that week by someone inside the family, the negotiations and the pulpit, and on what he can document, which is most of the book, he is precise, self-critical and frequently devastating. The shape is the argument, and the shape mostly holds.

[Kathy Wilson]

As an avowed non-royalist, I tend only to read books illustrating the inherent toxicity and absurdity of the Firm. This book achieved that objective and yet, it left me feeling a bit “icky” and in need of an energetic cleanse of sorts.

The main positive of the book is that it provided a much needed reminder of the outrageously toxic nature of the British press, their tactics of bullying, stalking, harassment, printing twisted tales and outright falsehoods, many of which would be criminal offences for the average citizen and should be even more so for people who make money out of such antics. Every person with an appetite for salacious gossip about public figures has fed into this and should be ashamed. It’s simplistic to say that royals, celebrities etc. choose that life so they should put up with it - the fact is, no human being is designed to deal with such constant and focused scrutiny, dissection and criticism of their every move, appearance, words, and intrusion on the most important moments and the most trivial. People who accuse Diana of playing the press are missing the point I feel - she literally had no choice but to play them, and it’s little wonder that her mental health suffered so badly as a result. And whether you love or loathe Harry and Meghan, it cannot be denied that they have copped the same treatment since their relationship began. It’s dispiriting to see that little has changed over the past nearly 30 years.

Spener addressed the manipulations of Martin Bashir, which were actually far worse than I had realised. I'd go as far as to say that Bashir has some blood on his hands for the part he played in Diana's life trajectory. I also hadn't realised that Spencer himself had facilitated the introduction. I was dubious however about his claims that he later warned Diana against Bashir and was surprised by her decision to do the Panorama interview. The need to assuage his own guilt is perhaps paramount here.

The truth can also never be established as to his now well known claims that KC was “elated” after Diana’s death, and said “we’ll forget her soon enough”. I’ve had enough experience of loss myself to know that grief is a destructive monster and that people can say and do the oddest things when in its grip. I’ve seen with my own eyes people who smile or even laugh in the face of grief because that is their involuntary stress response. So maybe this happened, maybe it didn’t. I don’t think the world is any better off for knowing though - the treatment dished out to Diana from KC and the BRF is no secret anyway.

The remainder of the book left me a bit cold. It reeked of aristocratic privilege, I guess not surprising given that it was written by a member of one of the oldest and most “noble” historic families in Britain. But much could have been left out. Did we really need to know in detail how he and Diana loathed their wicked stepmother, how terribly she treated their many servants, or how she disposed of priceless artworks and other valuable chattel at Althorp? That alone was somewhat tone deaf and in fact aligned Spencer more with the BRF and their privilege, in contrast to the many Britons who cannot afford to heat their homes, and/or are getting groceries from food banks on the regular.

All up, while Spencer is a good writer, the book could have done with a decent editor. His lack of humility around his own life and character also only served to increase the vibe of unlikable and unreliable narrator.

[Kaitlin]

Sometimes you open a book and unexpectedly realize you have more in common with the person telling the story than you ever imagined. I too lost my older sibling when they were 36.

Reading Swan Song, I found myself connecting deeply with Charles Spencer and what the world has often labeled the “forgotten mourners.” The people who are expected to grieve quietly in the shadows, while somehow finding the strength to put everyone and everything back together around them.

Charles, this was such a beautiful and deeply personal tribute—not only to the People’s Princess, but more importantly, to your sister.

Thank you for telling Diana’s story from your point of view. For reminding us that behind the icon was a human being. She wasn’t perfect, but she was a woman who tried her best—for her boys, for the people she loved, and for those around her.

Nearly 30 years after she left this life, Diana is still so deeply important to so many people. Your words offer a glimpse beyond the photographs, headlines, and public memory, and allow us to see her as a sister, a mother, and a person who was loved and mourned.

Swan Song is more than a story about Diana. It is a story about grief, family, love, and the people who are sometimes forgotten in the aftermath of loss.

Beautiful, heartbreaking, and deeply human.

[João |]

O Canto do Cisne é um livro que navega pelas memórias de Charles Spencer, o irmão mais novo de Diana.

O livro surge quase como uma homenagem à imagem que Charles guarda da irmã, dando a conhecer o seu olhar sobre muitos dos momentos que partilharam, bem como sobre aqueles que Diana viveu na sua esfera pública e privada.

A obra apresenta uma escrita consistente e fluida, intercalando os factos mais conhecidos da vida da princesa com outros menos vistosos, uma estratégia inteligente para manter o leitor preso até alcançar novamente a "gema" da história.

Em termos de conteúdo, o livro não é nenhum barril de pólvora: conta com apenas um ou dois apontamentos mais críticos, sobretudo à realeza britânica, mas nada de bombástico. Não trará grandes surpresas a quem já conhece a vida de Diana, contudo, é sempre emotivo recordar a história da "princesa do povo", desta vez através do olhar atento do irmão.

[Beth]

I listened to this one read by Diana's brother, Charles Spencer. I really enjoyed this one. I was crying pretty early on. He recounts the day she died though the funeral and after, while interspersing stories in between. Since I was listening to the audio, Diana's face was on my car screen the whole time and that was very weird. Do I think maybe some of his recollections are wrong? Maybe some of them, but I can only go on what he says and I enjoyed the book. I liked when he said that Diana didn't just want to prepare her sons to be princes, but also to be good human beings. Her death is one of the ones I am still mad at God about. I will have to look at a physical copy though so I can see all of the pictures.

[Laura]

This book was a tragedy. Take away the noise of the mistakes made, the controversy of the royal affiliation, this is a story of a young mother (younger indeed than myself), killed after being relentlessly pursued by male photographers, paid by male media moguls, for intrusive pictures. The more salacious the better. What strikes me, reading this book, is that we have seen throughout history, both before and after Diana’s death, that this pursuit of (usually female, but also male!) individuals can be fatal. And the British press seem unprepared to change. We must all take responsibility in that when looking at pictures in the tabloid press, magazines and now on social media. Anyone consuming that material is contributing to the demand - and is that what we want for our society? Worth a read if you’re interested in Diana and her works.

[Honor]

I don't know how to rate such a book, but it is deeply sad what happened to her and the treatment she suffered by the press and the royals. I think her brother has some guts to talk about their childhood and his relationship with her so candidly.

[Christine Hall]

Nearly three decades after his searing eulogy for Diana, Spencer revisits their childhood and her legacy in a memoir that is both affectionate and uncompromising. He recalls the bond they forged in an upper‑class household marked by neglect, while also indicting the tabloid press and the royal family. The book moves between lyrical family memories and sharp critiques, making it as much about the forces that shaped Diana’s life as about the sister he knew.

I quite liked it—Spencer’s voice is direct, sometimes raw, and the blend of personal recollection with broader cultural history made it compelling to read.

[Aryaman]

This book serves as the medium for a grieving brother who has now wished to, for the first and last time (hence: 'Swan Song'); address every rumour, and list all the facts of the lived experiences he and his sister Princess Diana underwent together and in their individual lives, uncovering the entire truths including: the duplicious and nefarious methods through which the media continuously bothered and scrutinised Princess Diana at any moment of her royal and post-HRH life. Written skillfully, with each chapter wielding its own dedicated section of the Earl's euology as it's title, describing Diana's key points in life from her childhood learning disabilities which went undiagnosed from her teacher's throughout her educational career; as well as providing (as he should in his role as a historian) insight on the providential relations which shared either the exact same or almost a duplicated version of Princess Diana's life including a prior Lady Diana Spencer (1710-1735) and Lady Georgiana Spencer (1757-1806). #mindblown#truth#hatethepaps... DONT LISTEN TO SAD SONGS WHILE AT THE END SECTION AFTER HIS EULOGY U WILL CRY I MADE THE MISTAKE.

[Kara]

insightful, incisive, and well-written.

[Laura Travis]

Must read for anyone even slightly interested in the royals