Wallis Simpson, the impoverished descendant of two distinguished southern American families, was a classic woman on the make: hard-edged, firm-jawed, acquisitive and with a certain brittle style. 'You can never be too rich or too thin,' she is supposed to have said. She was also – because of her relationship with Edward VIII, who gave up the throne for her – the most disruptive force in the 20th-century British monarchy before the advent of Princess Diana.
Mrs Simpson: Secret lives of the Duchess of Windsor by Charles Higham (Pan, 2005)
Popular exposé of the duchess, claiming to reveal 'the extent of the duchess's espionage activities and how she conspired against Britain in the interest of Hitler'. Get this book
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