Book and Video Reviews, D-H

Book Reviews, D-H: includes reviews on Diana: the People's Princess (1984) by David Darling,  Kip's Flowers for Diana by Kip Dodds, Douglas Flynn's British Royalty Commemoratives,Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman, Diana by Irene Frain, and Love and War by James Hewitt.

David Darling--Diana,the People's Princess

Probably one of the rarest of all the books about Princess Diana is David Darling's book, Diana,
the People's Princess (1984), which is long out of print and I have seldom seen it on ebay or
Advanced Book Exchange. (Its scarcity can be attributed to the fact that it was written for ten to
twelve year old girls and published by a press which sold largely to libraries.) The reason I
mention it now is because I wrote to the author, since I was curious about why a writer whose
other books were about astronomy wrote a book about Diana and how he happened to use the
phrase "the People's Princess" long before 1997. He replied that his publisher asked him to do it
because they desperately wanted a book about Diana and he was British (!)  He also said he used
the phrase because "it just came to me. She always struck accord with the public and seemed very
down to earth."  (Julie Burchill, a British newspaper columnist and author of Diana (1997), has
been attributed with originating the phrase, but so far I have been unable to verify when and
where she wrote it, and I have not yet located an address to contact her about it--so who knows if
maybe he may not have been first?) At any rate, it is a pleasant little book of 64 pages with plenty
of pictures, including a few I had never seen before; and he makes two very interesting
observations which stand out from the usual facts reported about the Princess at that time: first,
that she was very much like her mother in both looks and temperament, and second, that Althorp
once had the largest private library in Europe. (Originally appeared April 1, 2000.)

Kip Dodd--Kip's Flowers for Diana

When I first received Kip Dodd's Kip's Flowers for Diana, I was initially disappointed to see how
little there was in the book about her, but that disappeared as I began leafing through its pages of
gorgeous photographs of  highly original floral arrangements that he had created for Diana's use
in Kensington Palace and explained why and where she would use each particular piece.  There are
special chapters devoted to key elements such as color and scent, as well as a chapter on roses and
ones on arrangements appropriate to each season, including a display of candles at Christmas. It
has very explicit instructions on how to recreate some of them and an introduction by Paul
Burrell.  Though it may not have top priority among Princess Diana fans, it should be an essential
purchase for anyone who enjoys putting together and displaying flowers, fruit, and greenery in
strikingly beautiful ways. (Originally appeared December 10, 1999.)

Jayne Fincher--Travels with a Princess

I'm sure from time to time you have looked among the out-of-print listings in Royalty magazine
for Jayne Fincher's 1990 book, Travels with a Princess, and wondered whether you should splurge
and pay $60 to them for this volume which shows a picture of Diana emerging from a tank.
Despite the cover photo and the word "Princess" in the title, most of this book is not about Diana,
since only 37 of its 130 photos are pictures of her. The title is also a misnomer in that the title
word "travels" implies that these are photos from all over the world, but in reality only 45 of them
were taken outside of England. So what's in here? Well, the photos of Diana include a charming
seated shot of her and the boys taken in the gardens of Highgrove that has been used on a
refrigerator magnet, the stunning portrait shot taken on Remembrance Day when Diana was
wearing a  broad-brimmed black hat with a net veil over her eyes, a photo of her in the Gulf States
where she was seated cross-legged at a banquet wearing a blue and white dress and slim-legged
white trousers, a photo of Diana and her mother, and on page 12 a too-small photo of Diana
glittering in an elaborate gold sequinned and beaded Arab robe that she received as a gift in
Kuwait. Among the other photos are several pictures of the sweet-faced Duchess of Kent, a photo
of Princess Michael wearing a sweatshirt reading "Kent State", some charming shots of the Queen
Mother, a few relaxed shots of the Queen with her lovely smile, a photo of Princess Anne in Africa
that won a Royal Photo of the Year award, the photo of Princess Margaret which graced the cover
of Hello! that included a memorial tribute to her, photos of the Queen's grandchildren,
engagement and wedding photos from 1981 and 1986, and a tender picture of Prince Charles
carrying William in a baby basket off the plane at Aberdeen. Add to that Jayne's wonderful
narrative that fills in the details about the circumstances behind the photos and tells stories about
her experiences as a royal photographer, and this book is definitely worth adding to your
collection, only not at $60! (Originally appeared May 6, 2002.)

Douglas Flynn--British Royalty Commemoratives

Do you remember the excitement you felt when your parents got the Sears Christmas catalog with
its hundreds of pages of toys? Well, you can recapture some of that feeling if you get Douglas
Flynn's British Royalty Commemoratives, 2nd ed., 1999. It isn't meant to be a catalog, but I'm sure as you leaf through it you will see items that you will add to your "to buy" list. Seriously, it is a guidebook to a selected group of royal commemoratives, listing values, and what features
characterize items offered by major companies. The first section consists of chapters devoted to
each monarch  (Diana is found under Future Monarchs, which is devoted to Charles and William)
and is lavishly illustrated with color pictures of some of the most costly and beautiful items. This
section also includes chapters devoted to autographs and figurines. The second section is a price
guide to hundreds of items and each item is accompanied by a black and white thumbnail picture.
The book helps a great deal in distinguishing which of the hundreds of commemoratives are the
most valuable, since appearance alone isn't enough to determine this. (Some of the most valuable
items are frankly tacky, while some of the cheap items meant for widespread circulation are quite
tasteful.) This book is an absolute must if you are serious about collecting royal commemoratives,
especially if you are interested in items for monarchs prior to Elizabeth II, since it even has a
chapter for pre-Victorian memorabilia. Aside from Charles Noble's Diana: Collecting on a
Princess, this is the only book in print in the US which covers this type of collectible, and it is
more recent than current UK guidebooks about this field. What's more, it reflects Mr. Flynn's
twenty years of experience as a dealer in these goods. You can purchase it through the major
internet bookstores (remember to check All Area Books for its comparative pricing), or you can
purchase it from Doug's own site if you dare--otherwise, you may wind up buying more than just
his book, since he has many beautiful royal commemoratives, Royal Doulton pieces, and
Moorcroft pottery in stock. (Note: try the used section of all area books or second-hand listings on the major superstores, since Doug no longer has a web site and sells only through ebay.  Originally appeared July 1, 2000)

Amanda Foreman---Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman has just been republished in the US by St.
Martin's Press and the reviews are unanimously favorable. I first mentioned it in the July 18
update, and I'm even more enthusiastic than I was then, since Georgiana was a remarkable woman
for her time. She went out in public and campaigned for Whig party candidates in a manner not
seen again till the twentieth century, and wrote plays which were praised by her contemporaries.
She was one of the great hostesses of the era, and her doings were followed with so much eagerness
by the public that whenever a story appeared about her in a publication, sales of that issue rose
20%. (Does that sound familiar?) She was the sister of the first Earl Spencer, so Diana was not
directly descended from her, but one of her descendants was Billy Cavendish, the Marquis of
Hartington, who would have become Duke of Devonshire if he had not been killed in WW II. He
was the husband of President Kennedy's sister Kathleen, who was killed in a plane crash in 1948
and is buried at the family burial ground on the grounds of the church of Edensor near
Georgiana's Chatsworth estate. (Originally appeared April 1, 2000.)

Irene Frain--Diana

A reader commenting on Irene Frain's Diana at one of the book superstore sites called it, "More
of an appetizer than an entree", and that aptly sums it up. It means to examine the significance of
clothes in Princess Diana's life, and how they reflected her growing self-confidence. The text is
merely an essay of 15 pages, which barely begins to cover the topic, and she makes only a slight
attempt to link the text with the pictures or to analyze them individually. They seem randomly
chosen and organized. Buy Georgina Howell's Diana: Her Life in Fashion instead, since she does a
thorough job of assessing how clothes contributed to Diana's growing self-esteem, as well as
showing how she paid tribute to fashion icons of the past such as Grace Kelly and Jacqueline
Kennedy and paid homage to the cultures of countries she visited in the outfits she wore on her
visits. And its pictures make it the poor (wo)man's substitute for the Christie catalog. (Originally appeared September 10, 1999.)

James Hewitt--Love and War

And finally, there is James Hewitt's Love and War. I was prepared to trash this book since I
thought Princess in Love  was a tasteless, appalling book by an opportunistic egoist, but I came
away from it with the feeling that maybe if this book had been the only one published about their
affair, the public might feel more kindly toward him. You can't read it without getting the feeling
that he genuinely loved Diana, and she deeply loved him, as evidenced by snippets of her letters
which he quotes. If he is guilty of anything, it's incredible naiveté for allowing himself to be taken
in by a money hungry adventuress who stole some of Diana's letters, as well as the sentimentality
which caused him to keep them in the first place. (I think many of us can empathize with the wish
to keep old love letters.) Since he has turned down offers of millions of dollars for the letters, his
oft stated intention that he is keeping them to provide better insight of Diana for future historians
must be genuine; and it is of even more crucial importance that they be preserved since her mother
and sister have already destroyed crucial private papers (Charles: Victim or Villain?, pp. 293-294).
The book would have been better with a little more love and a little less war, but I applaud his
discretion in the way he writes about the romance in this book and I can understand that the war
is an attempt to rehabilitate his reputation, since he did serve with distinction at the front in
Kuwait. Still, it would have been nice to have more of the examples of her sense of humor, her
playfulness, and the everyday events which occupied her days. And he did take an incredible risk
in having an affair with her, as evidenced by his recounting of looking up the word treason, seeing
that it applied to committing adultery with the wife of the heir to the throne, and wondering if he
could still be sentenced to death for it! (Note: obviously this review was written long before the incredibly tasteless documentary that appeared in the summer of 2003 in which a television crew tailed Hewitt while he attempted to sell Diana's letters and bragged shamelessly about both his father's and his own sexual prowess. He must have been drunk, crazy, broke or all three to have agreed to appear in it, let alone let it air on British TV. Hopefully it will never be aired in the US. Originally appeared December 10, 1999.)

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This site originally launched July 1, 1999                           This page launched August 31, 2003.