Princess Margaret: A Life Unravelled

How does one take one of the 20th century's most facinating women and make her sound rather mundane? This author manages to. While this is not a great book it is a good enough book. While the chapeters are arranged by decade, it manages in spots to be confusing as to what time period is being discussed. Except where noted the photos seems slightly out of sequence as well. While I am glad that I purchased this book I think that there was the potential for a much more interesting book. It sort of brushed over the details of the Princess's private life and her interactions with the international rich and famous the, so called jet-set when there really was a "jet-set", only hit and miss references to her time spent in Mystique. While there was the chance to get quite salacious with the subject, the author goes a little too far in the other direction. If we were to take all our information on Her Royal Highnes from this we would get a picture of a woman who drank and smoked to the ruination of her health and was not terribly nice or happy. I think that Princess Margaret was much more than the book gives her credit for. The reader never gets the sense of glamour that the Princess evoked and we never get the flavor of the world that she lived in. Nice book but not great, although what it did achieve was to make me want to find another book on one of the most glamourous and interesting women of the 20th century.

Why do authors try to make the work of one book do for two? Why on earth do we need cricket included with the life of Princess Margaret? Because the author previously wrote a book on the sport of cricket of course! This is mostly either really, really dull letters back and forth between members of her staff and people wanting her to do a royal function or long, really, really dull quotes from other sources on Princess Margaret. Little of this adds anything to the portrait of H.R.H. While it was fascinating to see a photograph of Margaret aged only 15 smoking at a family picnic that is about all the new information presented here! Yes, she was likely spoiled. Yes, she certainly was not well educated. No, she did not get to marry the man of her dreams [even if he wasn't Peter Townsend]. Yes, she was trapped in a gilded caged. Mostly, those are cliches. Save your money.

The book was very factual and not terribly exciting to read.Think she led a much more remarkable life than revealed in this book.Would suggest a different author.

Horribly written with trivial detail. Boring - like reading a fact sheet filled with facts you could care less about.

In depth book about a lonely princess relegated to a life of openings and closings. Interesting reading, it can get boring, but it is a great book.

A compelling biography is usually characterized by two elements: good writing and an interesting subject. Unfortunately, this book is a little short on both fronts. Princess Margaret began life with every advantage--she had loving parents, an exalted position in society, material wealth, beauty, wit, and even musical talent. From a young age, she could be described as charming. But she was destined to become an "also ran" after her sister assumed the throne when she was only 21. She played off Queen Elizabeth's dutiful image by at first attempting a love match to Peter Townsend that was ultimately vetoed, and then by shifting gears to become the "bad girl" of her era. Excess followed; there were too many days of Famous Grouse whiskey, cigarettes dangled from long holders, a husband who sparred with her, and some unsuitable lovers. Her beguiling ways could flip quickly into a rude imperiousness that was perhaps justified by her birth but not by her lifestyle or accomplishments. She became tedious to the public who paid her bills.Heald had a good shot at this biography, having access to some of the major players who knew PM and being granted permission to use the royal archives to enrich his portrayal. But his rather scholarly approach finds its quagmire in an overabundance of trivial details. You get to read about how many brooches she was given, her meal choices, her preferences for the minutiae of official visits. Who cares? And there are footnotes on almost each and every page, introducing all personae. Do we really need to be told who the Rolling Stones are? Or the lesser known people that we have never heard of before and will never give another thought to? Heald's playing the academic to portray a dissolute princess lacks the drama and verve I think she would have appreciated.In the final analysis, he didn't like her much either. She ended her life badly, with lung problems and strokes and scalded feet that never healed. In reflecting on the question of whether or not he felt better for having known her as a biographer (even having met her in person), he answered with a sad "not really." Her pompous and self-destructive behaviors made her an unsympathetic figure, and even Heald admits that "some of her friends thought it a pity that she didn't die earlier" and noted that her obituaries "were mostly in a range from grudging to venomous." If you want the facts of Princess Margaret's life they are here, but this is not a book you read for pleasure.

Book was interesting as Margaret was a royal I didn't know a lot about. Author did a good job of illustrating how difficult it was growing up & living as Queen Elizabeth"s younger sister.

This book arrived in very good condition and has been a pleasure to delve into in connection with my research for a work of fiction. The author is to be commended on his honesty and attention to detail. His book helped me create a much fuller and fairer picture of a lady I thought I knew about, but didn't actually at all.

I have to agree with the other reviewers - this is an incredibly disappointing book on all levels. Tim Heald is, apparently, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. On the basis of this particular book, one wonders how he was ever granted such an honour. The prose is appalling - full of endless repetitions, clichés, badly-constructed sentences and (frankly) boring irrelevancies. The insight is nil. No biographer should impose himself on the text, at the expense of the subject, in the way that Heald does. At times (especially in the self-important and utterly pointless "Notes" at the end), the biography seems more about Heald's thought processes and (questionable) research than about Princess Margaret. He complains far too often about how he was not allowed to quote the entire text of letters from Princess Margaret, which he then proceeds to paraphrase (probably at greater length than the original letter!). The letters quoted are, however, of little or no interest or relevance at all. There is far too much of his own opinion of people's behaviour, a huge amount of gossip and tittle-tattle (disapproved of, but then quoted and discussed at length) and far too little of any insight into a complex character. He is far too keen to speak about how he met Royalty, how he had lunch with the Queen Mother and visited Glamis Castle with Lady Strathmore and so on. The apparent purpose is to demonstrate how good his sources are. However, if the product of these sources is utterly trivial, what does it matter? And as for the endless quotations from other people and other books.... Trivial to the nth degree.The footnotes are absurd, and often wrong (for example, the late Duke of Devonshire is treated as the late Duke some of the time, but held out to be alive at other times, often the footnote simply repeats the main text it is supposed to illuminate, and so on). Names are misspelled - often given different spellings in the same sentence. His use of names and titles is inconsistent.All in all, a very cheap, shoddy, sloppy, frankly tedious work of no scholarship, insight or interest whatsoever.I cannot recommend it too little.

There is sad undertone to this biography and a sense of a lack of fulfillment. Having said that, it is very well written and I was gripped by it throughout.

Great read,a very complex woman

Great book!