Little, Brown to Reissue Michael Bloch's Six Acclaimed Books about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor

Posted by Felice Howden in Book News, Little,Brown

The abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936 to marry the woman he loved, American divorcée Wallis Simpson, is one of the most fascinating and mysterious episodes of twentieth-century history. New information about it is still coming to light, as demonstrated by tonight’s Channel 4 documentary ‘Edward VIII: The Plot to Topple a King’, which provides fresh evidence about the underhand machinations in political and religious circles to get rid of Edward, ‘the people’s King’.

The last great wave of revelations about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (as the exiled ex-King and his wife became) took place in the 1980s, when barrister and historian Michael Bloch was commissioned by their French lawyer to write a series of books about them based on their private papers. This resulted in six acclaimed volumes which gave a detailed picture of their relationship, cast new light on King Edward’s short reign, explained the bitter relations which arose between them and the Royal Family after the Abdication, and dealt with the mysteries of their wartime career (when they came close to being kidnapped by the Nazis).

On 28 May, the fortieth anniversary of the Duke of Windsor’s death, Little, Brown are proud to be reissuing these six books, which were bestsellers in their day but have long been unavailable, with new prefaces by the author.

Their titles are:

Wallis & Edward: Letters, 1931-37
The Reign and Abdication of Edward VIII
The Duke of Windsor’s War
Operation Willi: The Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor, July 1940
The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor
The Duchess of Windsor

If you like historical love stories, thrilling mysteries, tales of family feuds and political plots worthy of Shakespeare, these are the books for you.