My review of The Duchess of Windsor and Other Friends, by Diana Mosley

The Duchess of Windsor and Other Friends

by Diana Mosley

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Writing came naturally to Diana Mitford Mosley, whose formidable intellect and extraordinary life resulted in a ream of published volumes: book reviews, memoirs, essays, diaries - even her letters to various friends and relatives had such readability and were of such historical value they were published in volume after volume. 

This biography of the Duchess of Windsor, like the author's other works, makes no claim of impartiality - she wrote what she thought, through the filters of her own direct experience and famously individualised world view.

There were many more academically penned biographies of the Duchess of Windsor, but none by authors who knew her, whose personal life she had been a part of. Such is the value of this contribution to the massive Wallis Simpson canon. 

I could read anything by Diana Mitford Mosley, having a natural bias for seeing her works in a positive light. The most engaging of her writings, as has been noted by various critics of this biography, are indeed to be found elsewhere.

This is perhaps not the book a Wallis Simpson novice reader might turn to for the dry history, any more than being one a novice Diana Mitford Mosley reader might initiate themselves with - it is simply an impassioned addendum to the author's countless other literary contributions and a qualified last word to Simpson's infinite detractors.

This piece has the uniqueness of being penned by a longstanding friend, a natural authority on elements of the woman more formal biographers could not capture. Others also wrote from a more negative bias, a key agenda behind this author's wish to set certain records straight about the woman beneath the unkind myths popular history has wrapped her in.

Diana Mitford Mosley was renowned for speaking her mind on contentious topics, few topics being more so than the Duchess of Windsor. Being a fan of this author and an avid historian, there was never the faintest possibility of my disliking this biography - though I can appreciate how the uninitiated Mitfordian may find it underwhelming, as may those seeking out meatier documentations of this polarising subject.

The touching intimacy of this book's penmanship, with its tributary endnotes, is what sets it apart from less biased Duchess of Windsor biographies. It was almost certainly never meant to be of as much academic value as other Simpson biographies, being pointedly more about setting certain public records straight from an insider's perspective.  

All these things considered, this book's harshest critics are, in their blinkeredness, simply missing the most fundamental reasons for its existence. It being far from the first Wallis Simpson biography or first Diana Mitford Mosely piece I have read, my expectations were shaped accordingly.

I read it in one night and admired it for exactly what it is - the eloquent narrative of a loyal friend.