From the 1960s graffiti proclaiming 'Clapton is God', to his seminal work in supergroup Cream and his phenomenally successful solo career, Eric Clapton has achieved the status of bona fide living legend and enduring icon.Now in his sixth decade in the music business, he occupies an exulted position at the pinnacle of the rock world thanks to songs like Layla, Wonderful Tonight and Tears In Heaven, and for many is considered the greatest guitarist who ever lived.This book will chart his rise to stardom in the 60s and his unparalleled success since walking out of the Yardbirds as a 20-year-old to follow his chosen path of the blues with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and later with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in supergroup Cream, as well as his successful solo career. However, his success has come at a price. Once a happy well-adjusted boy, the young Clapton was devastated by the realisation at the age of nine that the woman he thought was his sister was in fact his mother, and that the couple he thought were his parents were his maternal grandparents. His treatment by his mother was also to shape his future turbulent relationships with the women in his life, including his failed first marriage to model Pattie Boyd, who was married to Clapton's close friend George Harrison when he fell for her. Motherless Child also chronicles his battles with the demons of drugs and alcohol, his successful journey to sobriety, and examines his legacy as one of the most influential musicans of his generation.This is essential reading for any Clapton fan.

    There was Rosemary Leveson Gower, the girl he wanted to marry and who would have made the perfect match for a future king; the Prince’s long-term mistress, Freda Dudley Ward, who exerted a pull almost equal to Wallis over her lover, but abided by the rules of the game and knew she would never marry him. Then there was Thelma Furness, his twice-married American lover, who enjoyed a domestic life with him, but realised it could not last forever and demanded nothing more than to be his mistress.In each love affair, Edward behaved like a cross between a little boy lost and a spoilt child. Each one of the three women in this book could have changed the course of history. In examining their lives and impact on the heir to the throne, we question whether he ever really wanted to be king.

     The story of the Romanovs begins in Moscow in 1613, and ends in Ekaterinburg in 1918, at the beginning of a revolution, where Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children were slaughtered by a Soviet death squad. In this book, you will learn about the lives and reigns of each Romanov emperor and empress. Read about Peter the Great, who kept company with peasants and pie sellers but had his own son tortured to death; Catherine the Great, who finally convinced Europe that there was more to be found in the far north than just snow and barbarians; Alexander I, the gallant emperor who famously defeated Napoleon in 1812; Alexander II, who freed the serfs and survived five assassination attempts before perishing in the sixth; and Nicholas II, who ended the Romanov dynasty in 1917 when he abdicated the throne on behalf of himself and his son, the hemophiliac Alexei, who would never be emperor but is now considered a saint. The Romanov Dynasty Michael I (1613-1645) Alexei I (1645-1676) Fyodor III (1676-1682) Sofia Alekseyevna, regent for co-tsars Ivan V and Peter I (1682-1689) Ivan V (1682-1696) Peter the Great (1682-1725) Catherine I (1725-1727) Peter II (1727-1730) Anna I (1730-1740) Anna, Duchess of Courland, regent for Ivan VI (October 1740-December 1741) Elizaveta I (1741-1761) Peter III (January 1762-July 1762) Catherine the Great (1762-1796) Paul I (1796-1801) Alexander I (1801-1825) Nicholas I (1825-1855) Alexander II (1855-1881) Alexander III (1881-1894) Nicholas II (1894-1917)

    Now available complete with an updated epilogue, it will change the way you think about Charles, his Princess and his mistress.As the Prince of Wales turned fifty at the end of 1998, the media focused on the publication of Charles: Victim or Villain?, Penny Junor’s controversial biography of the heir to England’s throne. Directing the spotlight onto ‘the three people’ in the Royal marriage, this book has turned popular understanding on its head. But although Junor’s unique insight into these endlessly intriguing relationships caused fierce speculation, even outrage, nothing has been denied. Nobody has disputed that this is the true portrait of a marriage.Sourced from those closest to the Prince, the Princess and Camilla – some of whom have never spoken before – Penny Junor explodes and explains the popular myths. The result is a provocative new portrait of the man who will be King.

    Beginning with the accession to the English throne of Henry VII, the author guides the reader through a succession of monarchs, who also included the infamous King Henry VIII, Mary I, Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Identifying the key moments of their reigns, from insurrections to their handling of foreign policy to their many marriages, Alex Woolf clarifies the way in which these kings and queens governed their realm and what they had to deal with. It's the perfect companion for anyone who enjoys historical drama and wants to know more about one of the most intriguing royal dynasties.

    Tim Heald's vivid and elegant biography portrays a woman who was beautiful and sexually alluring—even more so than Princess Diana years later—and whose reputation for naughtiness co-existed with the glamour. The mythology is that Margaret's life was "ruined" by her not being allowed to marry the one true love of her life—Group Captain Peter Townsend. Therefore her marriage to Lord Snowdon and her well-attested relationships with Roddy Llewellyn and others were mere consolation prizes. Margaret's often exotic personal life in places like Mustique is a key part of her story. The author received extraordinary help from those closest to Princess Margaret, including her family (Lord Snowdon and her son, Lord Linley), three of her private secretaries, and many of her ladies in waiting; as well as gaining the Queen's permission to use the royal archives. Heald asks why one of the most famous and loved little girls in the world, who became a juvenile wartime sweetheart, ended her life a sad wheelchairbound figure, publicly reviled and ignored. This is a story of a life in which the private and the public seemed permanently in conflict.

    In that time, he became a close friend and trusted confidant who shared her most private moments. His first-hand account contradicts many of the so-called 'facts' about the Princess and provides an affectionate, if not always uncritical, insight into this complex, troubled, but ultimately fascinating woman.Here is the authentic voice of a man who played an important role during Diana's most trying times, and in her beloved sons' formative years, and who shows himself to be an exceptionally perceptive observer of the events that unfolded around the Princess. After Inspector Wharfe resigned his position in 1993 (making headline news), Diana announced her withdrawal from public life and axed her Scotland Yard protection - a decision her former 'top cop' believes led ultimately to her death.This account presents the most intimate portrait of Diana to date, as well as a fitting tribute to one of the outstanding figures of our age.

    His marriage to the self-assured and supportive Elizabeth Bowes-Lyons and his unexpected accession to the throne in 1936 changed the direction of the young prince’s life for good. Once on the throne, it was he who bore the weighty responsibility for restoring the nation’s confidence in their monarchy following his elder brother’s abdication and for maintaining morale during the darkest days of World War II, when, together with Winston Churchill, his dignified presence functioned as a beacon of reassurance to civilians and military alike. Denis Judd provides a fascinating, if sometimes controversial, reassessment of the man who, quite unexpectedly, came to occupy an extraordinary position in a time of unprecedented change.

    She has long deserved a full study and in Elisabeth Basford, she has found a dedicated and sympathetic biographer, who has done her full justice' - Hugo Vickers. Princess Diana is seen as the first member of the British royal family to tear up the rulebook, and the Duchess of Cambridge is modernising the monarchy in strides. But before them was another who paved the way. Princess Mary was born in 1897. Despite her Victorian beginnings, she strove to make a princess’s life meaningful, using her position to help those less fortunate and defying gender conventions in the process. As the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, she would live to see not only two of her brothers ascend the throne but also her niece Queen Elizabeth II. She was one of the hardest-working members of the royal family, known for her no-nonsense approach and her determination in the face of adversity. During the First World War she came into her own, launching an appeal to furnish every British troop and sailor with a Christmas gift, and training as a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital. From her dedication to the war effort, to her role as the family peacemaker during the Abdication Crisis, Mary was the princess who redefined the title for the modern age. In the first biography in decades, Elisabeth Basford offers a fresh appraisal of Mary’s full and fascinating life.

    The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing." – Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon (from Amazon)

    A steady, dependable young woman, known as ‘Lenchen’ within the family, she was particularly ‘useful’ to her demanding and recently widowed mother, who could not bear to lose her to a marriage which would oblige her to move and live abroad with her husband. In 1866 she married Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, a kindly but penniless bachelor fifteen years older than her. Despite the difference in ages, it was the only marriage among the Queen’s children in which both partners lived long enough to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. For nearly sixty years Helena was a tireless supporter of good causes, particularly in the field of nursing and education. This concise biography examines her life, work and relationships with her family.

    DICKIE MOUNTBATTEN: A major figure behind his nephew Philip's marriage to Queen Elizabeth II and instrumental in the Royal Family taking the Mountbatten name, he was Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia during World War II and the last Viceroy of India.EDWINA MOUNTBATTEN: Once the richest woman in Britain and a playgirl who enjoyed numerous affairs, she emerged from World War II as a magnetic and talented humanitarian worker loved around the­ world.From British high society to the South of France, from the battlefields of Burma to the Viceroy's House, The Mountbattens is a rich and filmic story of a powerful partnership, revealing the truth behind a carefully curated legend.Was Mountbatten one of the outstanding leaders of his generation, or a man over-promoted because of his royal birth, high-level connections, film-star looks and ruthless self-promotion? What is the true story behind controversies such as the Dieppe Raid and Indian Partition, the love affair between Edwina and Nehru, and Mountbatten's assassination in 1979?Based on over 100 interviews, research from dozens of archives and new information released under Freedom of Information requests, prize-winning historian Andrew Lownie sheds new light on­ this remarkable couple.

    This is a detailed description of the life of one helicopter pilot and what he did in the air, on the ground, with the people during his first tour in the Central Highlands while assigned to and flying for an Infantry Division, the Cambodia Invasion, and what it was really like living in Vietnam. The second tour was in the Saigon area with an Air Cavalry Troop and recounts live for Americans at the final months of the War, final cease fire events, prisoner exchanges, life on the ground, Saigon, the final flight of combat troops to leave Vietnam and the end of American combat operations and involvement. For those who want to know what it was like to be there -- without the hidden agenda, embellishment, or hype normally associated with the Vietnam War

    Like Edward and Wallis Simpson, the catalyst for the scandal here is also an ambitious, controversial American woman.Dylan Howard, bestselling author of Diana: Case Solved and Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales, charts how Meghan’s relationship with Harry was viewed as controversial from the start—and how her brief honeymoon with the British public began to sour shortly after she and Harry announced in November 2018 that they would be leaving Kensington Palace to move to Frogmore Cottage, an hour outside London. As senior royals expressed disapproval, the public at first seemed to enjoy the royal spat, with many still supporting Team Meghan—until it emerged that the bill to renovate Frogmore Cottage to Meghan’s lavish expectations would be $3 million . . . and be picked up by British taxpayers.Finally, in a move nobody saw coming, Harry announced he was turning his back on the role he had been groomed for since birth, giving up his HRH title, repaying the renovation costs of Frogmore Cottage, abandoning his royal duties, and leaving Britain for good. Buckingham Palace reeled.Howard’s unique access and insight into this constitutional crisis will not only address the tensions and tantrums behind closed palace doors but seek to answer the questions many are still asking:***Has Prince Harry ever really recovered from the death of his mother Diana—and the resentment he feels against the institution that tried to destroy her?***Why did Meghan, once hailed as a breath of fresh air, rile up the monarchy?***Why did she refuse to conform to royal conventions in the way that Catherine did before her?Did the public and media criticism of Meghan go too far? And just how valid are the accusations of racism?How did these modern royals treat the tabloids differently to tradition? And did it backfire?What next for Harry and Meghan? And how will they—and the institution they’ve turned their back on—react to their new lives outside the confines of the Palace and free from the strict codes and conventions that bind all members of the Royal Family?Caught in a trap by virtue of a life entombed in a gilded cage, Royals at War answers these questions and more . . . and reveals how Harry’s infatuation with Meghan and desire to modernize the monarchy could yet end in disaster for the House of Windsor. Played out against the cataclysm of the British tabloid's laser focus on the duchess’ every movement—for good or ill—this is the true story of Harry and Meghan’s split from the Establishment . . . and perhaps just the beginning of a whole new Monarchy redefined for the modern age.